Annual meeting

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Saturday y J fy 10, 1926

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Second Atinual Meeting

Sto^poell Family --Association

Incorporated

"Old Ship" Meeting House
Hingham y Mass.

Satu?~day, "July 10, 1926
10.30 A. M.

Mr. Luther Stowell Conger, Prest; Presiding

PRESIDENT CONGER: If you will all take seats, please, the
meeting will come to order. Our time is going to be somewhat
limited as we are a little late in starting. This part of the meeting
will be more or less informal.

We had planned to make a tour of the Old Ship Meeting House
here. I will say that any who were not here last year, or any
of you who have not seen the interior of this building from the
cellar to the garret, should not leave Hingham until you have
seen this historic structure. The attic part of it is especially
interesting.

The original plan was that, after the visit through the church
and the visit to the cemetery we would take automobiles and
visit the old home of Samuel Stowell. We will probably have
time to go through the cemetery before luncheon, but we will
have to do it very hastily.

After luncheon we will assemble on the lawn for the picture.
Then the bells will be pealed, and we will assemble at 3 o'clock
for the full program.

At this time I am going to ask Mr. Clarence Hinckley Knowl-
ton, Treasurer of the Hingham Historical Society, to give us a
talk on the "Old Ship Meeting House and its relationship to the
Life of Hingham." (Applause/

MR. CLARENCE HINCKLEY KNOWLTON.

Mr. Chairman, I am very glad to welcome the Stowell Family
here to Hingham. One of the early settlers of my own home
town of Farmington, Maine, was Dr. Aaron Stowell. A good
many of the Stowells seem to have been doctors. Dr. Stowell
went to Farmington in 1793, taught district school for a year,
and the next year hung up his shingle as a practicing physician.
He practiced there the rest of. his life. The Stowell house was
one of the landmarks in the village there in my youth.

Some of the Stowells also left Hingham and founded the next
colony that was founded in the eastern part of Maine. They
were prominent people, and settled in the vicinity of Calais.

I will be glad to speak to you for a few moments about this
old church, which was the twelfth church that was organized in
the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Several churches had been
organized in the Plymouth Colony at earlier dates, but this was
the twelfth church that was organized in the Massachuetts Bay
Colony.

A number of settlers came here as early as 1633. The place
was called Bare Cove at that time, indicating that there were not
many trees around the harbor. Other settlers came, so that in
1635 there were 29 families, I believe, including the family of the
minister, Rev. Peter Hobart. Most of these people came from
Hingham, which is a small hamlet in Norfolk County in England,
and among them were the Lincoln, Hersey, Sprague, Cushing and
Ripley families.

When you consider the .changes that have taken place in
suburban towns today it is surprising to know how many of the
descendants of these people who made the backbone of old
Hingham are inhabitants of present day Hingham.

This group of people left Hingham, England, principally for
religious reasons. The minister in Old Hingham was Robert
Peck, whose name is on the tablet in front of you, where he is
mentioned as teacher. He was a Puritan in religion, and did not
like to see so much standardization and ceremony in the church
services. He wanted to have the church services simplified, and
when the bishop sent out some directions as to how the altar
was to be fixed, and where the communion table was to be set —
the bishop wanted the communion table set up high — Robert
Peck, being of a violent and schismatic spirit, went ahead and
lowered it until it was about a foot lower than the floor in the
Old Hingham church. For that, and for having a private prayer
meeting in his home where he catechized the children, he was
fined and ordered to leave the parish. A great many of the
parishioners went with him.

— 2 —

Peter Hobart was the first minister here. He was apparently
one of the young men that Peck had brought up. He came here
before Peck came, and was installed as first minister. Both he
and Peck were Cambridge men. Cambridge was the seat of
Puritanism, and they had imbibed it there at the source.

The church was organized and Peter Hobart was put in as
minister in 1635. The first building was down the hill, about
where the street passes in front of the Derby Academy. It was a
primitive structure with a palisade around it as a defence against
the Indians.

When Peck came over the persecutions were active in England,
and he intended to stay here permanently- The church already
had a minister, so he was installed as teacher. He only stayed
about three years, however, as conditions changed in England
and they sent for him to come back. He went back to England
and stayed there until his death in 1656.

There were a good many troubles in the early days of the
Colonies. People had npt become used to the conditions, and
new leaders sprung up and there was a great deal of friction.
One of the most interesting contests was that which was waged
over the captaincy of the militia company. A certain group got
together and voted for one man, and they sent him up to Boston
to get his papers at the State House. In the meantime another
faction nominated somebody else, and the community was
divided on that subject for several years. There was a great
deal of friction, and the people of Boston tried to dictate who
should be the commander of the military company, and finally
succeeded in doing so. That is one of the earliest instances of the
local inhabitants opposing centralized authority that we have in
New England history.

Robert Peck's brother Joseph came over about that time, and
most of the Pecks in this country are descended from this Joseph
Peck. He did not like the way things were going in the Colony,
and he took his family and some others and went down toward
Rhode Island, where they founded a town which they called
Rehoboth. That name, translated, means "Here We Rest." That
would indicate that Hingham had not been a very comfortable
place for them for a few years.

But everything settled down and no other serious controversies
arose in the Colony. Peter Hobart took a very vigorous part in
the controversy and was fined by the Legislature for being too
yigorous. Then the people clubbed together and paid his fine.

He was followed as minister by John Norton. Very little is
known about him personally, but a great many distinguished
people are his descendants. Charles Eliot Norton is perhaps one
of the best known of his descendants. Mrs. Abigail Adams was
also descended from the minister in Hingham.

It was during his incumbency that the new meeting house was
built. When I say "new meeting house" I mean the one which
we are now in, which was built in 1681. The central part of
this building was first built, without the two galleries. As nearly
as I can make out, it looked a great deal like the Cohasset
church as it is today, or the Rocky Hill Meeting House in Ames-
bury. That was built 100 years later than this, but it is a very
similar church and still has the old colonial church pews.

There was considerable controversy over the location of this
church. A good many farms had been acquired in the center of
the town, and some of the people wanted it up there. Others
wanted it exactly where the old church was. Here again the
Governor and authorities of the Colony stepped in and said that it
should be built on such and such a place on the land of Captain
Joshua Hobart which he deeded to the town for that purpose.

The church was raised in three days in July, 1681, and it was
finished so that the first service was held in 1682 or, as they wrote
in those days, "1681-2," because the year did not begin until
March 22d, old style, in those days.

The wing on the side where the organ is was added in 1729,
in the following year, 1730, the ceiling was put in, and in 1755
the gallery on the other side was added. The pulpit was built
the same year, 1755, and it is a very fine example of 18th century
work. It was somewhat higher in the first place, but was cut
down at the same time the modern pews were put in, which
was in 1869.

It is interesting to know that before 1755 they had benches to
sit on during the two-hour sermon that they had in those days.
Sometimes the prayer was two hours long, also. There was no
heating in the church in those days. I think the heating was put
in about 1822.

There are a few of the old pews that have been restored here,
so that you may have an idea what the pews were like. These
are the box pews, and the central part of the church had the
narrower pews.

Mr. Norton had a long pastorate. He was followed by
Ebenezer Gay, who was one of the most distinguished men in
charge of this parish. He was minister from 1718 to 1787. He
was a man of very marked views. He was a picturesque speaker,
and often chose odd texts and delivered very vigorous sermons
from them. He was a liberal minded man. He got pretty well
away from Calvinism, and was one of the first Unitarians.
Although he was a Tory, he satisfied the people and stayed until
1787, preaching every Sunday unless he had an exchange. He
was stricken as he was about to put on his garb to go to the
service in 1787.

— 4 —

He was followed by Henry Ware, one of the first Unitarians.
He left here in 1806 to go to Harvard Divinity School when that
institution first became Unitarian.

He was followed, after considerable controversy in the church,
by Joseph Richardson, who also had a very long pastorate
extending from 1806 to 1871. Richardson, although the church
divided while he was here, was evidently a strong man politically.
He represented the district for several years in the State Legis-
lature, then he was State Senator, and finally served two terms
in Congress.

/nother long pastorate was that of Calvin Lincoln, from 1855
to 1881.

Even the recent pastorates have been of considerable length.
Dr. Carney was here 15 years, and Mr. Page who spoke to you
last year was here 10 years.

A great deal may be said of the influence of the church in the
town. The church and town were the same thing for a great
many years. It was the town that built this meeting house. It
paid 430 pounds for it and the old house was turned in. It is
supposed that some of the old timbers were used in this building.
The church is where the town meetings were held, as well as the
other meetings, because this was the established church of the
Colony. Later on the town meetings were separated from the
church meetings, and the church society was organized to take
possession of the building and the church members.

There have been three daughter churches from this old church.
The first was established in Cohasset in 1713. The second was
the meeting house in South Hingham which was established in
1742, and the third was the new North Meeting House on Lincoln
Street which was designed by Bulfinch. That organization split
off in 1806.

There was a good deal of controversy when Mr. Richardson
was called to the pastorate. They did not seem to find anything
particularly bad about him. Apparently the worst thing he did
was to break his engagement with a young lady to whom he
was engaged, and to marry somebody else. The second thing
that they did not like to say very much about was that he had
once offered prayer at what has been called a Republican political
mass meeting. He evidently offended some of the old families
in that way.

But the breach is pretty well healed now, and the churches are
very friendly. This church tries to stand as a beacon light in the
community. A good many of the old families are still members
here, and a good many attend here regardless of their previous
affiliations, and regard the church as a very home-like place.
That class includes many of our best members today.

I thank you for your attention. (Applause.)

DR. EDMUND CHANNING STOWELL: Mr. President, may I
interrupt just a minute for fear that I may forget it later? Per-
haps all the members do not know that, in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, there is a record of the framing of
this church. The framing of the roof of this church is extraordi-
narily interesting, and if anybody has a chance to go to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art they will see that record there.

PRESIDENT CONGER: I am very glad Dr. Stowell has
brought that out. That is news to me.

It is now about 1 o'clock, and we have about 15 minutes in
which we can make a tour of the cemetery. Then we will return
to the parish house for luncheon.

I want each one of you to realize that you are standing on
rather historic ground for the Stowell family.

Samuel Stowell came here with Peter Hobart in 1635. The
other day I ran across something in the History of Hingham in
the Boston Public Library which was news to me. I was under
the impression that Samuel Stowell came with Peter Hobart
directly from Hingham, England, but I understand that is not the
case.

Peter Hobart came to Charlestown in the first place, and then
gathered a body of 25 or 30 people together, and they probably
came to Hingham by boat. You will realize that in those days
there were no roads such as you have had the opportunity to
travel over today. He doubtless came by boat from Charlestown,
and probably picked out the landing place which we expect to
see this afternoon.

Samuel Stowell was a tool maker, if I am correctly informed,
and a man of that character stood out as a prominent citizen in
those days. I have no doubt that the adzes and axes and differ-
ent tools that were necessary to fashion the timbers that go to
make up this edifice were his handiwork.

It is exceedingly interesting to go up in the attic and see these
hand-hewn timbers of solid oak. They could not possibly be
replaced today. It is worth while to go up those steps and see
the immense amount of work that must have been put into the
building of this place. In those days they did not have electricity,
water power, steam, or any of those things with which to facili-
tate the work.

There are a great many historic thwigs to be seen in the ceme-
tery. Peter Hobart is laid away there, and a great many close
connections of those who are here today are laid away there.
We will also see the spot where Samuel Stowell is supposed to
be buried. I will go with you and tell you what I know, and if
Mr. Knowlton will go with us he may be able to throw light on
some things of interest.

(The session then adjourned for the tour of the cemetery.)

—6—

LUNCHEON SESSION.

Parish House, 1 P. M.

PRESIDENT CONGER: If you will please come to order. Rev.
A. E. Martin, of Stoughton, will invoke God's blessing.

REV. A. E. MARTIN.

Our Heavenly Father, we come together with praise for the
days that are past, and for the glory of the days which are
present with us. We thank Thee for Thy provision for all our
needs, spiritual, mental, and physical.

Bless us as we eat together, and make us to glorify the Great
God of all grace who giveth good to all.

We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

PRESIDENT CONGER: If I remember rightly, you folks liked
to sing last year. I made such a poor attempt at it thafthis year
I have brought someone who can do it far better than I could. I
take great pleasure in introducing Mr. Howard Mayon, who will
lead us in singing, and Dr. John Thomas, who will accompany
him.

(Mr. Mayon and Dr. Thomas led the audience in com-
munity singing, and Mr. Mayon sang "Open Road.")

PRESIDENT CONGER: The captain of the bell pealers has
just come to me and tells me that they are going to peal a quarter
peal, which has never been done on these bells. They have one
man here from Montreal and one man from New York City who
have made this trip specially to peal these bells, and the only
thing they are asking the Association is their expenses from
Boston and return. I think we owe them a great debt of grati-
tude for giving us this program. (Applause.)

I want you to know your officers. All of the Executive Com-
mittee are not here. Some of them are widely scattered, and I
shall read a telegram which I received this morning from one who
is at Albuquerque, New Mexico.

(President Conger introduces the various officers and
members of the Executive Committee.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: We are favored with a mother, three
sons, one daughter, and two daughters-in-law. I am going to
ask Mrs. Ella Louise Stowell, of Stoneham, to please rise at this
time with her family. (Great applause.)

I was very much gratified when one of the members of the
Association came to me and introduced her mother. I want to

introduce at this time Mrs. Frances Morse, of Medway, who is 91
years of age. (Applause.)

I am just wondering who is the youngest one here this after-
noon? I have one at my right hand who is five and a half years
old. Is there anyone younger? Will the young man please rise?
I am glad to introduce to you Ralph Ward Stowell, five and a
half years old. I think you will agree with me that it augers well
for the future of this Association to see the number of young faces
that are here today, and I hope that we can all strive to get more
of them into the family Association than we have at the present
time. We hope, as the years go by, that we can have a junior
program for them.

I am going to ask Miss Priscilla Maltby, of Stoughton, to rise.
She is seven years of age. (Applause.)

(Luncheon session adjourned.)

GENERAL MEETING.

Auditorium of "Old Ship," 3 P. M.

PRESIDENT CONGER: We will open our meeting this after-
noon by singing one verse of "Faith of Our Fathers," after which
we will be led in prayer by Rev. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell, of
Sedgwick, Maine.

REV. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL.

Eternal Father, we pray Thy blessing upon our family gather-
ing this day. We thank Thee that our fathers were men of faith
who loved Thee, their God, with mind and heart and soul. May
the faith of our fathers be living still in our hearts.

May we ever remember that we are Thy children, and that
Thou dost want us to be in right relations with Thee during all
our lives, and may we so live that when our summons comes
Thou wilt say unto us, "Well done, good and faithful servant.
Enter thou into the glory of thy Lord." Amen.

("I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes" was then sung by Mrs. Wood-
bury Sweetser Stowell, of Sedgwick, Maine.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: I am going to digress a little from
the program as laid down, because of certain circumstances
which will be apparent later on.

I have quite a collection of data here which I wish I could put
before the members of the Association in some tangible way. I
have tried during the last year to submit some of it to you by
letters and by word of mouth, but I think somebody else can do it
better.

A year ago last May, when we had our second meeting at
Wilder Hall before we had incorporated, I brought before the
Association certain facts which I wished I had commented on
last year. I hope it is not far fetched or out of place if I should
take this opportunity to read an extract which I prepared at that
time which showed why the Association was brought into being.

"I might aptly take for a subject this afternoon, "Why Are We
Here?" Probably some of you may have been somewhat curious
as to the aim, purpose and direction of a meeting of this char-
acter. On the title page of the Stowell Genealogy, compiled by
the late William Henry Harrison Stowell, of Amherst, Mass.. is
this statement: "To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook with-
out a source, a tree without a root." To even glance through
the pages following of the genealogy indicates to one very quickly
that such an appellation could not be applied to those members
of the Stowell Family, who took any pains to look into the matter.

From the early days back in 1630 to 1640 of the first Stowell in

this country — Samuel at Hingham — on through to Watertown —
the Connecticut and Vermont Hills — on up through the Berk-
shires and then scattering or spreading outward as a fan until they
reached the Pacific Coast — from the Canadian border to the Gulf
of Mexico, and even out beyond the confines of the United States,
has gone the name of Stowell with its wealth of culture, sturdi-
ness of purpose and character and unselfish devotion to the
demands made upon them in the various avenues of commercial
enterprise and the activities of the country and world at large.

Landing at Hingham, Samuel Stowell was among the number
of 30 who, with the Rev. Peter Hobart, left the Old World with
the fixed determination of building for themselves a new home
in the western hemisphere. This was back in 1630. What a con-
trast between those days and the present — then, hardships of all
kinds to endure In making that new home; today, plenty for all
coupled with the luxuries that modern science has given us. All
through the ensuing years the members of the family have been
in the front ranks of their fellow citizens, leading in good and
honorable affairs, and while they may not have aspired or
reached the highest offices in the country, still they have made
for themselves positions of trust and confidence in their respective
communities.

Take it right in our own state of Massachusetts. The second
Nathaniel Stowell, of Pomfret Centre, Connecticut, was one of
the Committee of Safety, who served so admirably at Bunker
Hill. Several of his brothers also served with distinction in the
War of the Revolution. Then on down — his son, Cyrus, of Peru,
Massachusetts, up in the Berkshires (the highest inhabited spot
in Massachusetts) was a member of the State's Constitutional
Convention of 1820 and served for 13 or 14 years as a representa-
tive from his district on Beacon Hill, only a short distance from
this spot.

I might go on and on, enumerating case after case, of others
who have been first in their communities, but the foregoing is a
good illustration of what has actually taken place in our family.

While talking with Dr. Charles Henry Stowell, of Lowell,
Massachusetts, last Sunday evening, one who has been very
deeply interested in the family and who has spent lots of time and
money in delving into our history, remarked: It is very difficult for
any parent to make their children interested in their school work.
One goes through his or her task of getting a lesson generally
in a perfunctory manner. Take for instance in the case of a history
lesson, where dates are to be memorized. They can, after con-
siderable drilling, be given correctly; but how much real signifi-
cance did it mean to you or to me when we attended school?
However, if we knew that our great-great-grandfather had served
with distinction, say at Valley Forge under Washington during

— 10 —

that memorable winter, or that one of our ancestors had helped
throw the shipment of tea overboard into Boston Harbor, or had
been in the front with those who scaled Bunker Hill — don't you
think we would be perfectly willing to read our history lesson
once, twice and even thrice, if necessary, and that we would be
very capable of discussing with our teacher some of the facts
brought out in our history lesson. We undoubtedly would, and
what is more to the point, out on the playground we would have
been the center of attraction from our fellow classmates. This
fact, above all others, is why you are here today. An interest in
ttiose who have gone before you and who have helped materially
in making this country what it is today.

We are a large family. Its history can be traced back to the
days of William the Conqueror. There is much that we can do
for our country and for ourselves as an Association. "In union
there is strength." William Henry Harrison Stowell spent 20
years of his life in getting together our family history. He spent
thousands of dollars on a work which is conceded by authorities
to be the finest family genealogy in existence. The printing and
binding alone of the 500 copies he had printed cost $5,000.00.
The work to the original subscribers cost $9.00. We certainly
owe him a great debt of gratitude. Dr. Charles Henry Stowell
has very ably compiled much family data, particularly his own
branch, and had the same printed. If the good Lord is willing
and permits him to live another six months, he hopes to revamp
and add to his previous work much valuable information on our
family. With all of the effort which has been put forth, is it not
up to us to "carry on" the work so well done by those who have
gone before?

As a lad I well recall in grammar school, back in my native
state of Minnesota, when we were asked to get as a text-book,
"Stowell's Healthy Body." Always in my mind rose the question:
"Who was this Stowell — was he any kin of mine?" All through
school days — on out into the business world — down to the recent
great World War, when I came East, was this thought with me.
Then in my work at Camp Devens, I visited Lowell several times.
As usual to the telephone directory I must go to see how many
Stowells I could find. Lo and behold! a Dr. Charles Henry
Stowell. A call is made and I find none other than the author
of my old text-book, "Stowell's Healthy Body." Interesting?
Well, in the parlance of the doughboy, "I'll say she is."

Relatives, family members, do you know that there are mem-
bers of your family and of my family who fought in the Revolu-
tionary War, who were laid away in cemeteries that are now
places of almost absolute desolation? Is it not up to us to see
that such places receive the care and attention that is theirs by
right of heritage?

— 11 —

Interesting, extremely interesting, is it to take a trip down to
Hingham; view what is known as the old Stowell Homestead;
on out to the Newtons; see the old foundation of the Israel
Stowell home; walk over the ground where your ancestor, my
ancestor, trod; look at the objects they undoubtedly viewed and
discussed; on down into the Connecticut Hills, where to this day,
although no known Stowell is near, the hills still answer to the
name of Stowell. On up to the Berkshires, where on the highest
inhabited spot of Massachusetts was once an entire colony of
Stowells. Not one there now, but many a tale do the older citi-
zens there tell you of the various members of the family.

We could go on and on, as I have remarked before, until we
come down to our own generation with members of our family
excelling in medicine, astronomy, international law, religion,
music, art, politics and leading in various commercial enterprises.
Is not all of this really worth while knowing about and banding
ourselves into such a permanent organization as may be the
means of our knowing still more about our illustrious family?

May I not ask of each one of you here assembled, that you
make a solemn vow — that wherever possible you will do all that
within you lies to help make this the biggest and best Family
Association in America? It can be done. We have the brains,
the brawn, and last but not least, the "wherewithal" to make this
possible. As I said before, "In union there is strength." We are
all "cogs in a wheel," as it were, and if each cog will only function
properly great good can be accomplished."

To bring this Association further toward the goal at which we
are aiming, we should get in touch as rapidly as possible from
time to time with some 2,400 members of the family whose names
we have in our mailing list. I want to emphasize two things this
afternoon. I want to see if you will not back us up in furnishing
necessary help, especially from a stenographic standpoint. If
anybody is qualified along that line it would be a great help if
we could have a card index compiled which would contain the
names that we have so that we can arrange them according to
states. Then we could take the pivotal states and work up our
membership gradually from that list, as outlined by Dr. Ellery
Cory Stowell, who was the speaker on this occasion a year ago.

As you all know by letters which were sent out in April,
although some of you heard of it previously, I was laid up about
a month or so during last year. I think the doctors were more
scared than I was, as it never gave me any worry. I guess I got
a good rest out of it, and while I was lying on my bed in the
hospital I did a great deal of work for the Association, as they
would allow me to read. When I got up in the morning I would
go at it, and I would keep at it until I had to stop when they
turned out the lights and would not let me go any further.

There is very much work to be done. During this year we have
been in a semi-organized condition. Our treasurer attempted to
resign about three months ago, because he was expecting to go
to Florida. He is in Florida at the present time.

We have four of our Executive Committee with us today, and
the rest of them are scattered in different parts of the country and
are unable to be with us.

I need assistance and we all need assistance to try to get the
work into a little more systematic condition than it has been in
the past. No one person is physically able to carry on as I have
carried on during the last 18 months with this work. I am not
a slacker. I am willing to go to the end of the rope and a little
further, but I want to bring home to you folks plainly that the
work cannot be carried on in this way. It is not just to the
Assocciation as aa incorporated body, and it is not just to you
people here who are members of the Association. Last but not
least, it is not just to myself from a physical standpoint.

1 have a number of communications here that I want to bring
before you because they have been sent specially for this meet-
ing. Two telegrams have been handed to me since I came this
morning.

(President Conger reads telegrams and communications.)

Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 9, 19:!h.
Luther Stowell Conger,

Old Ship Meeting House, Hingham, Mass.
We are thinking of you and our other cousins assembled at Hing-
ham in family reunion and wish you a very pleasant and enjoyable
time. We hope the weather will be as cool and comfortable with
you as we find it in the Southwest, where we are visiting the
descendants of the original Americans in their pueblos.

MR. AND MRS. H. M. STOWELL.

Cleveland, Ohio, July 10. 1926.
Luther Stowell Conger,

Old Ship Meeting House, Hingham, Mass.
Deeply regret we are unable to attend the Stowell Family reunion
this year.

HARRIET ESTHER BURROWS STOWELL

and RUTH A. DOBEL STOWELL.

PRESIDENT CONGER: At our meeting a year ago I read a
telegram from Maria Florence Stowell. At that time it came to
me out of a clear sky. I could not place her until I had looked her
up in the genealogy. It seems that a copy of the Boston Tran-
script with the announcement of our meeting had reached Los
Angeles a few days before the meeting, and she wired me that
she wanted to be considered a life member and followed the
telegram by a check for $25.

— 13 —

I have written her two letters since then, but I had not heard
from her until I received a letter dated in Santa Paula which
came by air mail. In my reply to Miss Stowell I shall say that
there is not anything that comes to my hands in the way of
Stowell data of any description that goes into the waste basket.

(President Conger reads communications from Maria Flor-
ence Stowell.)

Santa Paula, Calif., July 6, 1926.
Mr. Luther Stowell Conger,
5 6 Farragut Avenue,
Medford, Mass.

Dear Mr. Conger:

Ihave time for just a word. 1 thought I would send you a night
letter, but I could not sleep one night and these thoughts came to
me. As the message was too long for a telegram, I am going to
send it by Air Ship.

If you do not care to read it at the meeting, just drop it in your
waste basket.

I hope you will have a fine day.

With all good wishes.

P. S. — I expect to be here for the next six weeks, if I keep on
improving. M. F. S

GREETINGS FROM CALIFORNIA.

Hail to the "OLD SHIP" the old meeting house,

Where our "Grandsire SAMUEL" worked and worshipped,

Many, many long years ago.

To this meeting house the STOWELLS are coming,

With their colore "RED and GOLD" aflying,

To do homage to the "DAMES and SIRES" of long ago.

One from California sends you Greeting;

And ie wishing you great happiness and cheer.

May the day be eo inspiring,

That your hearts with kindness shall o'erflow

Till all the Clan, both far and near, shall know.

And the BELLS! With their ringing, ringing,

What is the message they are bringing?

May it fill your soul with singing —

Till the Clan shall meet again.

MARIA FLORENCE STOWELL.
July 10, 1926.

PRESIDENT CONGER: I understand there is a letter enroute
somewhere from the mother of our secretary, Thomas Johnston
Homer, Jr., who is with her husband in England. The letter may
be somewhere in Hingham at the present time for all I know.

Mr. Homer received a letter from his mother, and I would like
to read an extract of it to you.

Someone was showing us a map of Dorset the other day and the
word "STOWELL" popped right out at me. Tom thought I would
probably regret it if I didn't visit the place, which proved to be

— 14 —

really in the lovely Somerset country. No one in D<

us anything about it (it was so tiny). Wp took the train

Dorchester (Thomas Hardy's home) to Yeoville <a rather lnt<

ing church with a chained Bible), from there to Templecombe where

we hired a taxi to take us to "STOWELL."

It was a very lovely drive from Templecombe. We found nothing
but a restored tiny church with a 15th century tower i not h,
repair); an old yew at the front, one or two farms scattered about
We got the key from the farmer's (Hooper) next door. Tlo- oldest
thing inside was a pew end (1670). We hunted up Hansford, a
farmer, who had the key to the records. He had never heard of
anyone by the name of Stowell and he had lived there a great many
years. He sent us to the Vicar at North Cheriton. The Vicar, a
most charming man, his wife and her brother, Brig. Gen. Marriott-
Dodington, were interested and cordial. Gen. Dodington's elder
brother is or was Lord of the Manor at Stowell, though he has
recently sold his place. The Vicar gave us a note to Hansford giving
us permission to look at the church records the next day. He
thought Stowell was simply the name of a locality and that there
had never been any persons of that name there. The name came
from Stan well — stoae — fount (see Collinson's History of Somer-
setshire which is probably at the Boston Public Library and the
Boston Athenaeum). We spent the night at an interesting coaching
inn, Wincanton, with a court yard, climbing pink roses, enormous
blossoms. Catherine Testout, Queen Victoria stayed at this inn
when a child. The next morning while prowling about Wincanton
(the name of the inn was the Greyhound), I discovered a gate and
an ivy covered passageway leading through a kitchen garden to a
small Friend's Church, almost hidden by hedges and yew trees. You
•will find a paragraph about Stowell in Kelly's Directory (1923), the
one which includes Somersetshire. There we found that the present
church records went back no farther than 174 5. Nevertheless we
called at the Vicar's again (he has a very well known kennel of
'Pomeranians — Black Acre Kennels) and then had a look at the
church records, written on parchment, and took pictures of the
church. The whole episode was most interesting. Tom found
Homers and Stowells in the Bristol Directory.

(The foregoing letter was written by Mrs. Ella Stowell
Homer, mother of our secretary, Thomas Johnston Homer. Jr..
while she and her husband were touring England this past
summer. The "Tom" referred to in her letter is her husband.)

I wish to say that we are not prepared to say that the coat of
arms shown in our exhibit is the coat of arms of our family. It
is a picture of the coat of arms on the end of a pew in the chapel
connected with Cothelstone Manor. I hope, through the efforts
of this Association, to prove that we can make some claim to that
coat of arms. I am very reserved in my statement as to our right
to the coat of arms, because I have been cautioned not to make us
appear ridiculous in the eyes of the English by claiming that this
is the Stowell coat of arms. The connecting link between the
Stowell family in England and our family in this country has not
been proven." You have noticed that part of the letter I just
read has some reference to that. I think it simply means that time
will tell. If we have a research committee organized to get into
it we will probably determine the facts.

— 15 —

But I do want to say that we have not tried to foist the coat of
arms onto you as members of the Association as the coat of arms
of the present Stowell family in this country. This is the coat
of arms of the family at Cothelstone Manor as shown in the views
in the back of the room which are for sale, and which you should
look at before you leave here.

I have brought up this matter of the coat of arms more for the
purpose of educating us as a family, so that we would know what
the thing stood for.

I was at Portland, Maine, on Decoration Day, and I was very
much interested to meet a young man who is interested in her-
aldry, and I hope we can get him to take hold of that particular
part of the investigation together with Dr. William Stowell, of
Bronxville. I have appointed them as a committee to work on
that subject during the following year.

I have a letter from Charles Henry Stowell, of Lowell. I wish
you could all know that man. 1 have only seen him three or four
times, but I have a very great respect for him because of the
conditions he has overcome. He is bedridden with a very bad
heart, and is likely to go at almost any moment, but he is an
exceedingly cheerful man, as you can tell by reading this letter.

Lowell, Mass., July 6, 1926.

To the President of the Stowell Family Association.
Luther Stowell Conger.

My dear Friend and Brother:

Congratulations on your great success and personal gratitude for
your earnest work in the interests of the Stowell Family. Sorry
am I that sickness of long standing prevents me from meeting
with you all at our coming anniversary.

In my boyhood days our home was a meeting place for many
business men. Mother said it was strange how these men always
had their work and her dinner at the same hour! During the meal
each guest would surely ask father if he had a relative in such and
such a town, same name as ours. Father would say: "Nice man?"
"Good looking?" "Pays his debts?" "Married and lots of chil-
dren?" To each of these questions our guest was always ready to
reply: "Certainly, Mr. Stowell; certainly." And my father's answer
would always be: "Yes, a relative; cousin I believe."

These are the kind of folks, Mr. President, you see before you
today. Again I say, "Congratulations."

"Happy is he whom neither wealth nor fashion,
Nor the march of the encroaching city

Drives an exile
From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.
We may build more splendid habitations,
Fill our rooms with paintings and sculptures,

But we cannot
Buy with gold the old associations."
I enclose a photograph of Thomas Stowell, M. D., London,
England, sent to me during a correspondence of some 35 years ago.
He said he had his genealogy in an unbroken line from Lord

— 16 —

Stowell and that he was legally entitled to a seat in the Hon-.- ol
Lords, but thus far had been "unable to obtain ju He wrote,

"One look at your face and I could instantly decide if you
a Stowell. If so, your nose would be the first thing I wou
as you came around the corner!"

I also enclose a photograph of the residence of Dr. Joseph Stowell,
of Earleville, N. Y. He owned a large farm, and had a very profit-
able medical practice for those days. He was an own brother to my
grandfather and in this very house my grandmother gave birth to
my father, June, 1818.

I also enclose a pair of spectacles, worn for many years by another
Stowell doctor, before and after 1850.

The woods have been full of doctors ever since I have known
anything about the Stowell kind!

I send these to the Stowell Family Association Museum.
Let me tell you, if you do not already know, of a charming book,
which you can buy in Hingham for $1.25. It is beautifully written
and will be highly prized: "Hingham." Published by the Old Colon}
Chapter of the D. A. R.

"Fill, brief er long, my, granted years
Of life with love to Thee and man;
Strike when Thou wilt, the hour of rest.
But let my last days be my best."

— Whittier.
Your past foretells your future, my brothers, and so I dream of
great days to come.

Most sincerely yours,

CHARLES H. STOWELL.

During the past year we have been called upon to lay away
five of our membership whose passing has come to my attention,
their names being as follows:

The first one was with us last year —

EUGENE ALEXANDER STOWELL, of Billerica.

MRS. JULIA STOWELL LEIGHTON, of Cambridge, who was

an aunt of Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell, and who was here last

summer. Mrs. Leighton was laid away a week ago this

afternoon.
MRS. ELLA LEFFIE RUSSELL, sister of Samuel Stowell

Symmes, of Winchester.
MRS. ELLA BACON WILKINS. of Brookline.
MRS. MARY STOWELL HAMMOND, of Sharon. Connecticut.

They are all members of the Stowell Family Association, and I
thought at this time it would be quite fitting for us to bow our
heads in silent prayer. Then we will be led in prayer by Rev.
Woodbury Sweetser Stowell, after which we will join in one
verse of "Blest Be the Tie That Binds," sung softly.

REV. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL.

Heavenly Father, we certainly are grateful to Thee for Thy
kindness to us. Thou hast cast our lot in pleasant places.

As we have listened to the roll of those of our family whom

— 17 —

Thou hast summoned home, our hearts have been touched with a
deeper tie than ever before, for we know that they have gone
on to that better land, that other shore, and that when we our-
selves are summoned we shall see them there.

Our Father, we pray that Thou wilt bless exceedingly this day
the families of our departed friends, that Thou wilt be very gra-
cious unto them and that Thou wilt give them peace.

In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.

PRESIDENT CONGER: I purposely delayed introducing the
speaker of the afternoon because there were some members who
were arranging part of the program for me.

I thought we had gone to the highest point in getting our
speaker of last year. We had a wonderful address and a won-
derful time for a first meeting. In looking around for somebody
to give us the talk of the afternoon I was reminded of a state-
ment made by the sister of our speaker of this afternoon, when
she wrote me that she hoped that I could eventually get her
brother interested in the Association. She said that if once his
interest was aroused she knew that we would have some worth-
while and timely service from him.

Mr. Leon Carl Stowell has certainly responded in a most
remarkable manner to the note which I sent to him asking him
to take that place on our program today. If you could have read
the correspondence that I have received from him during the last
three or four weeks, and could have heard the luncheon talk we
had about six weeks ago, you would have realized full well that
his heart is with us in all that we are undertaking to do.

As I intimated at the luncheon this afternoon, the remarkable
thing about the interest manifested in this work is the activity
taken by the young people which, I am sure, augers well for the
future of the Association. I take great pleasure at this time in
presenting to you Mr. Leon Carl Stowell, vice-president of the
Dictaphone Sales Corporation, of New York City, who will talk
to you on "The Pride of Background." (Applause.)

MR. LEON CARL STOWELL. .

Let me first correct some grave mistakes which were made in
the announcement of this meeting. I was reported as the orator of
the day, which of ftself is an embarrassment and, presumably for
further description, I was referred to as good looking and' mar-
ried. I take mention of all three of these things (so devoutly to
be wished for by myself) as a friendly boost, but in reality all
three of them are misleading.

I have, however, one reason for claiming distinction this after-
noon. My father was one of ten children. Of these ten, five were
boys. Despite this splendid showing in the seventh generation,

— 18 —

I am the only one in this branch 01 the family by the name ol
Stowell to carry on my particular part of the family tree into the
ninth generation and J am fast becoming middle-aged and still
only a bachelor, however eligible I may be. They say also that
the older you grow the more particular you get and the less
attractive, so you can see that I hardly count as of any importance
at all in our Family Tree.

Among all the gatherings in this country there are none
interesting as the family gatherings that we hear of occasionally,
nor have any of them a reason more fundamental or justifiable.
New England is regarded essentially as the part of this country
where such family associations are principally located, for it must
be remembered that if this great republic of America can lay any
claim to ancestry it surely must be found in those parts where the
early settlers located. Here, in the New England States, may be
found a limited number of families which were among those who
laid the foundation of this great country and which in themselves
became such an integral part of the real building of America that
today it is possible to find entire families who are known descen-
dants of the early settlers of the United States.

Therefore, we are gathered today not to pay tribute to each
other, nor merely to become better acquainted, but first to make
a gesture of homage and gratitude to those among our staunch
ancestors who lived so well in their day, and who so nobly trans-
mitted to their progeny the spirit of right living, and the love of
high ideals, that today there is gathered here, although only in
proportionate numbers, a sufficient crowd of witnesses who can
point, and do point, with an exceeding pride to their heritage as
members of the Stowell Family.

As Americans, we all take pride in the fact that the people of
this United States comprise a nation which in itself is the most
cosmopolitan nation in the world. During the last hundred years,
the United States has been the melting pot for all nations. People
have gathered here from all different countries and by the admix-
ture of the blood of all nationalities there has been developed that
many-sided, brilliant-minded, highly-intellectual individual who
stands before all nations as an American. And because many of
us in the Stowell Family are proud to have merged into upstand-
ing, loyal citizens, during 364 days of the year each of us faces his
own world with the proud consciousness that he is an American, a
member of the nation which leads the world in almost every de-
partment of art, science and literature — proud that he is a citizen
of a country which by general right of principle now stands head
and shoulders above all other nations because of its giant size
and other attributes which mean world-leadership, but on this
the 365th day of the year, we meet together to remember also
that in the period which now lacks only ten years of 300, the

Stowell Family has remained a recognized unit in America. On
this one day, we are prompted to reflect on all that has gone
before, all that makes history within history, history of family
life amid national progress. And I am going to tell you members
of the Stowell Family that I, for one, deem it to be a great privi-
lege to stand as a link between the past and the future — a bridge,
as it were, between then and now — a voice which tries to echo,
a heart which beats as your hearts do with blood inherited from
those who lived clean lives and whose deeds were great because
they were simple. My own father is here today. I cannot remem-
ber my grandfather as you probably can remember yours, but
few here may be able to remember their great-grandfather, and
when you think of the proudful fact that everyone who is assem-
bled here is a member — a true member — of the Stowell Family
who may go back for nine generations, and perhaps for ten gen-
erations (I am referring now to the younger children), therefore,
behind these seven, eight, nine and even ten generations, you will
find the name of Stowell borne by a man who brought with him
to this country principles of right living, of earnest endeavor in
1635. He also brought with him background of ancestry as an
enduring heritage. I want to tell members of the Stowell Family
that we have something to celebrate, we have something to be
proud of, we have a standard to be adhered to, and a heritage to
pass along. In these days, we live at a faster pace, the world
itself is developing at breakneck speed as compared to the hap-
penings of even some few generations ago. If the first Samuel
Stowell of 1635 was to step into our midst today and become
knowledgeable of the one great development which has enabled
this large gathering to assemble, overnight, as it were (I refer to
the development of transportation), he would stand overawed
and amazed. I do not need to carry you back 300 years, nor 200
years, nor 100, nor even 50 years, to impress upon you the
miracle that last night performed when it brought you together
from all parts of the country, as it were, with the absolute cer-
tainty of being present this morning. Then cast your minds back
to the days when our ancestors performed some deeds which
were mighty in themselves and necessarily ponderous in their
development and there will be conjured up before you a picture
of these sturdy men and women, kinsfolk of ours long since gone
before, who did laborious things because they were right, and not
always because they were easy nor even quickly effected; they
thought right, they determined right and because their deeds
were right they have endured.

Great men these were whose lives remind us that we too may
make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us footprints
on the sands of time. Who then among us will say that today
marks July, 1926, any more truly than it marks July, 1636, or

—20—

even more truly than it marks July, 2236? For, having lived for
300 years in the generations that have gone before, we as
progenitors of those who shall live 300 years hence, are as truly
building for the future as were those who lived 300 years ago.
Year by year we shall meet as the Stowell Family Association;
again and again we shall remember the days that are past and
look into the future with the same self-reliance which sustained
our forebears, remembering on each anniversary occasion that
we gather to renew our obligations and to draw support from
one another for what shall face us in the future.

Little, I say, did Samuel Stowell and the other Pilgrims who
came from England to settle on these shores and in this town of
Hingham know what was to grow out of that humble beginning.
Life in those days was a good deal more of a struggle than it is
today. I say that in the face of what appears to us a very com-
plex and sometimes difficult civilization in which we now live, for
today the obtaining of the necessities of life is a relatively easy
matter. It is now not the necessities which present to us our big
problems. It is rather the luxuries of life, although many of us
have come to believe that what I would class as luxuries are, in
reality, necessities, but in those days of 1635 and the years imme-
diately following, it was an eternal struggle to obtain for oneself
and family the things which we now think of as the bare necessi-
ties of living — food, clothing, protection for oneself and family;
not only the protection from the cold of winter and the storms and
the other hardships, but the protection of life itself. We have be-
come quite accustomed in this day to pass the uniformed police-
man on the corner, giving him no more thought or attention than
any of the other indications of modern life which surround us. In
those days the only policeman they had stood in the corner behind
the door or was hung over the mantle-piece or in some other con-
venient place so that it could be immediately used when needed.
That was the family rifle, and it had to be used frequently in the
defense of the very lives of those who made up this community
of Hingham.

In those days practically every man had to follow some trade.
Samuel Stowell was a blacksmith and as such was a man who
played a tremendously important part in the daily lives and pro-
tection, if you please, of this community; for he not only shod the
horses and repaired the vehicles of the community, but he kept in
repair the firearms of every family in the village and as such
contributed much to the factor of their personal safety.

Life in America has changed mightily since then and what was a
simple group of settlements along the Atlantic Seaboard, princi-
pally desirous for the independence of their religious thinking and
the things which they needed for their daily existence, has now
become part of a vastly complex nation, and the quietness of

— 21--

these surroundings has given place to the roar of life which is all
about us every day.

And it is particularly appropriate for us to pause in the midst
of this, once each year, to come together and give some thought
to those from whom we sprang and to the families of those about
us who live today.

When I was invited .to come to this meeting and have some-
thing to say from this platform, I began immediately to revolve
in my mind the real reason for the existence of such an associa-
tion and to visualize the valuable things which as a family we
can contribute to American life today, for, after all, if we do not
have some worthy objectives, if we do not accomplish something
which is entirely worth while at these annual gatherings, such an
association cannot expect to endure for a long time and become a
thing worth while.

In my search for those things which we could do, I have natur-
ally found out what has been done and, although I do not wish
to usurp the field of our President's report, I do want to take just
a moment to say to you that a tremendous effort has been put
into this association's affairs, and I want to pay tribute to Luther
Stowell Conger, on whose shoulders has rested to a great degree
the carrying out of the program so far. From a close contact with
William Henry Harrison Stowell, Mr. Conger has supplied the link
between the splendid work which he accomplished in his lifetime
and the carrying on of that work through some future arrange-
ment of this association. Through his ceaseless efforts in com-
municating with individual members of the Stowell Family, he has
built up this association to the very creditable showing which this
meeting represents today. Through his own personal efforts he
has interested such members of the family as Dr. Ellery Cory
Stowell to take an active part in the work of the association, and
1 want to call all of this to your attention, not that Mr. Conger
needs this for his personal satisfaction, for a job well done is
always the best reward; but because I feel strongly that at the
outset of this meeting this afternoon each one of you should be
thinking of taking an active part in some phase of the work of
the association for the future. Mr. Conger cannot carry it alone;
he cannot carry it without funds, but, most of all, an association
of this nature cannot be carried on to really important things
without enlisting many individuals in it to take an active part in
the different phases of the association work. So if you will,
please, bear in mind during the time that I shall be telling you
some of the things which I consider important to be done, that
the success of those things and of the association itself depends
upon your selecting one or more of the things which particularly
interest you and volunteering your services to carry on that part
of the work to a successful conclusion.

— 22^-

What are the worthwhile things to be done by this association?
In starting the search for such things, I was reminded of the story
of the man from California and, like all good citizens from Cali-
fornia, he never lost an opportunity to impress on everyone the
wonders of its climate, the beauty of its surroundings and its
riches. He was visiting in New England and one day was walk-
ing down through a quiet street of a New England village. Soon
he came to an ivy-covered church, the door of which was open
and he had noticed that people were going in, indicating that
some sort of service was going on. Feeling that the quiet and
repose of a little church would be very restful and being inter-
ested in all of the various phases of the life of the New England
village, he went in. To his surprise, he found a funeral in pro-
gress, so that rather than disturb the meeting, he slipped quietly
into one of the rear pews. As was customary in that village, the
minister soon finished his part of the service and then called upon
each individual there to get up and say something about the
deceased. Finally everyone had been called upon except the
stranger in the rear pew and the minister said, "There is a
stranger here. I do not know him personally, but undoubtedly he
knew the deceased and I would like to have him say a few
words." Whereupon the man from California arose and said:
"I regret that I do not know the deceased, but now that I am on
my feet, I would like to say a few words about Sunny California."

Our California friend was certainly what you might call a
"booster." His mind was upon the limitless opportunities of that
sunny clime, and I too feel prompted to hold before the eyes of
all here present a composite picture of what can result from the
activities of an association such as ours. While we are here first
to pay tribute to those who have made possible for the Stowell
Family a definite and progressive future, we have, as no less an
object of our meeting, the years which are before us.

PRESIDENT CONGER: Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt for a
moment, there are some of the members of the family of previous
years who have been very anxious to hear the balance of your
remarks, and I think it might be well for them to come in, dressed
as they were back in those days.

With your permission we will have the doors in the rear
opened, and 1926 will be followed by 1912, 1902, and three
of 1861.

1861 — MRS. EDWARD MENDELL,
16 Lovell Street,
West Somerville. Massachusetts.

1861 — MISS MILDRED P. STOWELL,
Freeport, Maine.

1861 — MISS HELEN ELDER,

Bi'llerica. Massachusetts.

—23—

1902 — MRS. ALICE STOWELL ELDER,
Billerica, Massachusetts.

1912 — MISS FRANCES MENDELL,
16 Lovell Street,
West Somerville, Massachusetts.

192 6 — MRS. H. A. DUMONT,
58 Pleasant Street,
Brookline, Boston, Massachusetts.

(The members of the Stowell Family of the periods indi-
cated enter the room and take seats on the platform amid
great applause.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: The idea, Mr. Speaker, is this: Next
year we hope that the association will see fit to meet at Pomfret,
Connecticut, which is the next place in importance after Water-
town from which our family in this country came. There is an
excellent opportunity down there at the Pomfret Inn, where the
situation is such that we can have the house all to ourselves, with
the church adjoining. The grounds are very spacious and the
pageant can be carried out in costume effect. We will try to
arrange for everybody to come with costumes suitable to the
different periods from 1635 down to the present day. We wanted
some of the members of the family to come this afternoon and
give those here some idea of what they may see next year.

MR. STOWELL: I do not know that I know just how to wel-
come the members of the family of 1861, but I am very pleased
to have them come. in. I think this is one of the things which
this association ought to do. It is something in which all of you
can share. I am going to tell you what in my opinion can be
done, and I am going to say first that I think this pageant which
is represented by a fair sample only can be carried out by this
association in a very attractive fashion. I hope all these young
ladies heard me say that I am an eligible bachelor.

I know an association of this kind can only be carried on if
the individuals in it find the thing which they personally want to
do. If we can direct enough people to the things which are worth
while for an association of this sort to do, it will become a very
large success.

I felt that it would be valuable to the Stowell Family Associa-
tion to search out those people who could say something about
their own family association. The results are gratifying. The
Nye Family, of America, through Mr. Wm. L. Nye, sent me a
pamphlet setting forth the report of their first reunion held at
Sandwich, Mass., in 1903. Mr. Frank A. Bayrd, of the Maiden
Evening News, sent me a letter outlining the activities of the
Breed Family. Mr. William Ballou sent me a letter containing
the object of the Ballou Family Association of America. Mr.

—24 —

Joseph Belcher sent me a letter telling of the activities of the
Allen Kindred of America.

I will not take your time to quote you verbatim the things which
I learned from these sources, but 1 will say that it gav*e me an
insight into the activities of other family associations which
taught me that this Stowell Family Association of ours can
become an important factor in American life and can contribute
materially to that life and to the happiness and well-being of the
members of the Stowell Family Association itself.

What, then, are the things which can be done by this associa-
tion through the activities of its members? I will not attempt
to enumerate them in the order of their importance, for that is a
debatable matter, but let me enumerate, please, the things which
can in my opinion be accomplished by this association to the
eternal glory of all concerned:

First — Those of you who have read the Stowell Family Geneal-
ogy— and please do not take that literally, for I have a vivid
realization of the magnitude of the book — realize that William H.
H. Stowell was not able to complete the line from Samuel Stowell
back through our English ancestors. Since he has passed on
there has been some further effort in that same direction. I have
in mind the trip to Europe of Dr. William Leland Stowell and his
visit to Cothelstone and the tomb of Sir John Stowell. The pic-
tures which he took are on Exhibit here today.

We must not be, you know, like the little boy in school, who,
when the teacher asked the class to name the first man, raised
his hand and said: "Teacher, I know who he was." "Who was
he?" said the teacher. "George Washington," replied the little
boy. "Why do you say that?" asked the teacher. "Because,"
answered the little boy, "he was first in war, first in peace and
first in the hearts of his countrymen." "But," said the teacher,
"don't you remember hearing about Adam?" "Oh,' said the
little boy, "I didn't know that you were going to count
foreigners."

If some one, or group of members of this association would
take upon themselves the tracing of the Stowell Family back still
further through the ages, it would be a valuable contribution to
the Stowell Family Genealogy and an extremely interesting sub-
ject to tackle.

Second — Perhaps of much greater importance is the carrying on
of the Genealogy from the point where William Henry Harrison
Stowell laid it down at the time of his death and, at the same
time, through elaboration, the searching out and filling in of those
sections of our present genealogy which, by force of necessity,
were left unfinished by him. Here again, I say, is an exceedingly
interesting and valuable piece of work which could be undertaken

— 25 —

by some group within this association so that the Genealogy may
be perpetuated now that it has been so handsomely started.

Third — No association or group of people, bound together for
any definite purpose whatever, should be without a home— some
recognized headquarters which can be pointed to as the center
of all its activities. I am a member of a college fraternity. It has
a memorial building on the site of the first chapter house where
the fraternity was founded. The Nye Family has purchased and
restored the original house in which Benjamin Nye lived. For-
tunately for us, the house in which Samuel Stowell lived is still
standing here in the town of Hingham. What more appropriate
place could there be established for a headquarters for this asso-
ciation than here in Hingham where Samuel Stowell landed in
1635, and where naturally the Stowell Family tradition centers.
Let us picture for a moment the house of Samuel Stowell, owned
by the Stowell Family Association, repaired and put in good con-
dition, refitted with the furniture of his period and established as
a museum of Stowell documents, antiques, and materials of his-
toric significance, not only to our family, but to all students of
Colonial History. Isn't that a picture on which every individual
here can dwell with considerable pride, a personal pride, if you
please, in an accomplishment of your family in which you had a
part?

Fourth — Here is another aim which perhaps seems much nearer
to you and more easy to accomplish; namely, the establishment of
a tablet in the New England Historical Society to the memory of
William Henry Harrison Stowell to commemorate his contribution
to the Stowell Family. Surely we all owe a debt of gratitude to
William Henry Harrison Stowell. A committee should be ap-
pointed at this meeting to report to us next year on a complete
plan of carrying out this particular idea. Please understand again
that I am not attempting to usurp the prerogative of the Presi-
dent of this association or its other officers in suggesting that this
thing be done, but I second that action most heartily.

Fifth — I have recently been a party to an interesting search
which has been made in Heraldry for the accurate Coat-of-Arms
of our Family. It is a subject which requires considerably more
effort than has been put into it as yet, for on the face of it there
are apparently two coats-of-arms of the Stowell Family with
various changes in quarterings even on those.

Some interested group in this association should search out the
complete story of the Stowell coat-of-arms and at a subsequent
meeting the correct coat-of-arms should be presented for recog-
nized adoption by this association with the necessary arrange-
ments for a source of supply of that insignia in whatever form the
members wish it. It is possible to have these coats-of-arms as
stick-pins, lapel buttons, watch charms, engravings and beauti-

— 26—

fully painted for framing in your homes; and there are in front
of me, I know, some members of this association who will find it
intensely interesting to search out the proper coat-of-arms and
see that it is adopted by this organization.

Sixth — Perhaps I should have stated first the next purpose of
this association as I see it and that is to complete its membership.
Very creditable work has been done already in this regard. I
personally have the feeling that we have not yet even plowed the
ground in this regard and that we have in our membership people
who enjoy the personal contact which comes from correspond-
ence and personal visits, and that through such a group we can
undertake to make this association representative of every branch
of the Family wherever it may be found throughout this broad
land. Probably I am coming very close to the subject which is
very much in the minds of those who have actively been carrying
on the organizing work of this association, but I felt that I must
mention it because it is of signal importance if we are to under-
take to carry out the many ambitious things which can be done
by this organization.

Seventh — When 1 was in Washington recently 1 had the
pleasure of a personal conversation with Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell,
and I got from him another most interesting work that could be
carried on by us; namely, the study of family characteristics. Dr.
Stowell spoke of this last year and probably will have something-
further to say here today, so that I will not dwell upon that
subject, but some of you can be interested, I know, to join Dr.
Stowell in an intensive study of the family characteristics down
through the generations of the Stowell Family.

Eighth — There was a time when my next suggestion would be
considered in the realm of impossibility, but not today. I sug-
gest that in the year 1935, on the 300th anniversary of the landing
of Samuel Stowell in America, that an organized trip to England
be carried out and that an endeavor be made to have a substantial
representation of the Stowell Family taken on that trip. It is an
ambitious scheme, yes; and yet it is quite possible of realization,
for, after all, a trip to England today is nothing extraordinary
and is not at all difficult of carrying out. When the French Lines
advertise a round trip to Europe for $ ? it gives you some

indication of how near to all of us the possibility of a trip to
Europe has become. I have personally traveled more than
30,000 miles since January 1, 1926, and, although perhaps that is
exceptional, it is a fair indication of how nearby, if you please,
most of the points on this globe of ours are today and, although
I do not wish to lay too much stress upon this particular project,
I do feel that it has real possibilities, that a substantial number
of members of the association can be enlisted in such a project
and that it is worth while for some committee to take upon itself

an investigation of the possibilities of such a trip, the reasons
why it would be worth while, the program of what could be done
while there, and report its findings to the next meeting of this
association.

Ninth — Now I have in mind two things which are easy of
accomplishment and which would contribute exceedingly inter-
esting factors to the meeting of another year. I refer, first, to a
group of speakers who could present some interesting incidents
about the Stowell Family in different parts of the United States.
I got this idea from the activities of other family associations. It
has been a part of the Nye Family program, for example, to have
papers read from Nyes of different parts of the country, pertain-
ing to family traditions in their immediate vicinity. After all,
there is great difference in the modes of living, the work, the
pleasures, etc., of each part of these United States of ours, and I
recommend for your consideration a program of some subsequent
year in which the activities, both past and present, of members of
the Stowell Family in different parts of the United States can be
presented.

Tenth — And here is a thought for your consideration. A
pageant in which there would be men and women accurately cos-
tumed for each generation of the Stowell Family. We are going
to give you some samples on which to whet your appetites for
such a pageant day. My secretary became so interested in
searching out the costumes of these periods that I have in front
of me an accurate description of the dress of both men and
women for the years in which each one of my own ancestors was
thirty-five years old. Short skirts were worn in the year 1705
by the men. That was the year in which my great-great-great-
great-grandfather was thirty-five years old, so you see that the
ladies of today come rightfully by their present-day dress. There
are some inconsistencies, however, if they are copying the year
1705, for in that year long hair was the style among the men.
It was obvious to me as we searched out these facts that the
ladies of today could not have copied the dress of the ladies of
1705, for the hoop skirt was absolutely essential if one was to be
in style, and those of you who are familiar with the New York
subways will concede that the hoop skirt is an absolute impossi-
bility today.

I recommend that a pageant committee start work at once in
preparation of a Stowell Family Pageant for the meeting of 1927,
and I shall shall be glad to furnish them with such information in
this respect as I have gathered so far myself.

Eleventh — You will think my supply of things for the Stowell
Family Association to do is inexhaustible, but I am fast approach-
ing the limit of my comments in this regard. There are two
factors, however, which can stamp this association as contribut-

— 28 —

ing substantially to its members and to the world at large. One
of them is the establishment of a scholarship or scholarships to be
competed for by boys and girls who are members of the Stoweli
Family. If we contract to help the boys and girls of this family
to obtain an education which they otherwise could not have, we
will have done a most important piece of work. How ambitious
such a plan becomes is, of course, in exact ratio to the strength of
this organization, but I want you to think about it; I want you to
think of establishing scholarships which would give boys and
girls of the Stoweli Family an opportunity to carry on their studies
in this country and possibly in England and who need such help
in order to accomplish it.

Twelfth — One more item and then I am through. I believe no
association of people such as ours have done their full duty until
they have contributed something to International World Peace.
I am one of the members of the Stoweli Family who spent 18
months in the United States Army during the World War. My
entire tour of duty was within the United States, but I saw enough
of what war is to realize the vast importance of peace. The
president of my company, Mr. C. K. Woodbridge, is president also
of the International Advertising Association. That association as
an organization has undertaken to contribute to international
understanding and international relationship through business
contact and business friendship. Just what part we could take
I do not know, for there is no precedent so far as I can find for a
thought of this sort being developed in a family association, but
the mere fact that we all, as members of one family, are out-
spokenly working for international peace would have, in my opin-
ion, a peculiar weight and a distinct appeal to the people of other
countries; for we are not a political organization, we have no
axe to grind, we can have no ulterior motive. I realize that in
saying this to you I have touched upon a subject which probably
no one has had in mind for this association, but I wish you would
think about it; I wish you would take the idea home with you
and perhaps another year some one can step to this platform
and offer some concrete suggestions as to what we. as a family,
can contribute to international relationships and if this thought
was to reach no further than the limitations of our own family
group, we could even so be a recognized power in expressing the
non-political aspirations of this great American people.
(Applause.)

So let me close. Certainly, if the program which I have been
bold enough to suggest is carried out it would be a very
ambitious one, but it seems to me that everyone here has an
earnest ambition to do things worth while. If this association
presents an opportunity to do something worth while to satisfy
our ambitions, to contribute something which all of us may be

—29—

proud of, think of it, if you please, in the light of what we are
contributing in the ninth, tenth and eleventh generations of the
Stowells. If I was to put my finger on one of the great weak-
nesses of American civilization today, 1 would say that we do not
furnish to the young people growing up, a background of family,
a background of accomplishment to which they can turn with
pride and from which they can obtain standards which will make
them abitious to climb high in their own positions in the com-
munity and country.

I had the pleasure recently of attending the dinner which was
given to Lieutenant-Commander Byrd on the day that he arrived
in New York on his return from his flight to the North Pole.
Senator Walsh, of- Montana, was at that dinner and in comment-
ing upon this exploit Senator Walsh said that Americans deal in
impossibilities; that an explorer had made the statement in
advance of Byrd's flight that it was an impossibility to fly over
the Pole in an aeroplane and that it would never be accomplished.
Yet it was done, and I am wondering if it was not done because of
the splendid examples of exploring and flying that had preceded
Lieutenant-Commander Byrd's attempt. You must know that in
our own family circles there are many Stowells, both in this gen-
eration and in every generation in this country who have achieved
tremendous things and whose achievements can be set up as
examples for the generations to come and that from such
.examples and from the accomplishments of this association the
young people of the. Stowell Family can have a background on
which they can build more substantial things. Some of us will
be interested in one phase of the work of the association and
some in another, but I ask you all to select some thing of real
interest to you and contribute through that thing your share to
this association. (Great applause.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: Some of these ladies feel that they
have to go, but before they retire I want to say that our speaker
wrote to me and suggested the idea of a costume pageant. I
"wrote to Mrs. Dumont to ask her help, but the special delivery
letter which should have been delivered to her Monday night did
not reach her until almost a week later. What these ladies have
done has been done on exceedingly short notice, and I want to
thank them most heartily for it. What they have worn this after-
noon has been brought from their own homes, and I think it
shows what this family can do if we put our shoulders to the
wheel, even at the eleventh hour, and we are deeply appreciative
of what they have done along that line this afternoon.

Mr. Stowell has brought so many things to you that, as he has
said, you will have to take them home and think them over. I
wish I had time to comment on them to you this afternoon, but
our time is getting short.

— 30—

It" we had arrived a little earlier we could have made a tour o
Hingham and could have seen the historic places. I hope we car
do that after the meeting is over, and that those who have
machines will wait long enough to take those who have n<>f
machines. Some of our members have come from considerable
distances. Mr. Stowell, of Maryland, has come the greatest
distance.

I wish the members of the association would appreciate the
position in which I am placed in reference to its work. I am not
trying to back water, but I am just trying to lay the situation
before you.

I am busy all day long, and this work has been done at night
time. I have sent out 250 letters with membership cards enclo
asking if there are any suggestions you would like to make, and
asking that you would please let me hear from you. 1 got three
replies to the 250 letters.

After the efforts of the past 18 months the letters that I read
to you this afternoon are words of the greatest encouragement.
They do help keep one's morale up, because when you come
home from a day's work and take up the work of this association,
if you do not hear from anyone for two or three months you begin
to wonder, "What is the use? Why keep persistently at it?" 1
am asked the question repeatedly, "Why do you do it?"

The topic this afternoon was "Pride of Background." It is well
for us to know we are well born and to know where we come
from. Personally I am proud to be able to stand in this historic
spot and in this old building where my grandfather several gen-
erations removed was one of the pillars of this church, and make
this plea to you this afternoon.

If you have time after the meeting, I would like to have you
say a word to me, or I would like to have you drop me a line and
let me know the particular thing you are willing to do. If we go
to Pomfret, Connecticut, it is going to mean a great deal of hard
work, in one sense of the term, but it will be easy work if you
are interested in that sort of thing. I think we are all interested
in it. Many are here today who were with us last year, and that
shows that you are interested in this work.

It has been a splendid day. It has been splendid for the fam-
ilies to get together, to renew relationships, and to know each,
other. There are no two minds with the same characteristics in
this audience this afternoon. Each one has his own particular
bent, just as Mr. Stowell has remarked about Dr. Ellery Cory
Stowell's mind running along the line of the study of the family
characteristics.

The thing for us to do is to boil that thing down. The reaso:-
we had a reporter this afternoon was that we may get a verbatim
copy of just what took place here. 1 hope that every one of our

members may have a copy of the remarks that have been made,
but funds must be raised for that purpose.

Then we should be able to follow up our correspondence. The
secretary and myself have many letters on file that are unan-
swered. I can use the typewriter very well, and if I had the time
I could take care of all this correspondence. But we need help,
and should be able to hire a stenographer, or two of them if it is
necessary so that we can answer the letters that come in from
time to time, in justice to those who have written to us.

I am going to ask at this time for the reports of the different
officers. I see Mr. Jean Stowell has retired. He had a report
on Genealogy.

SECRETARY HOMER: Mr. President, my report is divided
into two parts. The first is the minutes of the first annual meet-
ing, and the second is the secretary's report for the current year.

MINUTES OF THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
STOWELL FAMILY ASSOCIATION, INC.

The first general meeting of the Stowell Family Association, Inc.,
was held in the Old (Ship Church, Hing'.:am, Massachusetts, on Satur-
day afternoon, July 11, 1925. About 100 members were in attend-
ance.

President Luther Stowell Conger presided.

The meeting was opened by an invocation by the Rev. Woodbury
Sweetser Stowell, of Sedgwick, Maine.

Mr. William F. Foster, ■chaiVman of the selectmen of Hingham,
gave the association a formal speech of welcome which was
responded to by Dr. Edmund Channing Stowell, of Marlboro, New
Hampshire.

The Vice-President, Mrs. James B. Pringle, representing the
Bunker Family Association, gave us a talk on her experiences in
connection with an organization of this character.

Reports of the Secretary and Treasurer were read and accepted.

Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell, Professor of International Law at the
American University of Washington, D. C, gave the principal address
of the occasion, outlining a little of the antecedent history of the
Stowells in England before our common ancestor Samuel came to
Hingham.

He also pointed out as suggestions one or two things which the
association could ultimately accomplish, such as

First — A statistical study of the family characteristics from a
standpoint of heredity and biology.

Second — An association trip to points of interest to the family
in England, as at Hingham, England, and Cothelestone.

The meeting was closed by singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee."

Respectfully submitted,

THOMAS J. HOMER, JR.,
Secretary
July 10, 1926.

—32—

SECRETARY'S REPORT FOR YEAR 1925-1926.

The association progressed by leaps and bounds since Its Inception
a little over a year ago. The individual members al large probably

do not see this in the same way that some of those who hav*
closely working for it see it. The officers have had to do their work
in their spare time, and necessarily a great deal has been left
undone. There has undoubtedly been some fine inefficiency and mis-
management.

We have, however, tried to do our best, and have been greatly
gratified by the interest shown by so many of the family.

This is evidenced by the fact that from no membership at all on
May 1, 1925, we have closed the first year with over 200 members
who live in nearly every state in the Union and in about three for-
eign countries.

Our first meeting was held July 11, 1925, at Hingham, Massa-
chusetts, with over 125 members attending. During the morning
of that day many of them visited points of historical interest in
Hingham. Chief among these, perhaps, was the home on Fort Hill
Street of the original Samuel Stowell, who came to this countrv
in 1635.

We all had luncheon together in the parish house of the Old Ship
Church.

In the afternoon an Executive Committee meeting was held, a
general photograph was taken, and a combination general and busi-
ness meeting was held in the Old Ship Church. For a beginning
it was a most successful meeting.

Gradually the work of the association is getting into control, and
.we hope to get into a more regulated stride in the ensuing year.
New memberships are coming in well, and old memberships are
being renewed strongly.

Fifty-seven ballots for the ensuing year have been cast.

Respectfully submitted.

July 10, 1926.

THOMAS J. HOMER, JR.,

Secretary.

PRESIDENT CONGER: May I ask that the report of the
Nominating Committee, of which Mr. Samuel Stowell Symmes, of
Winchester, was chairman, be read at this time?

SECRETARY HOMER: Mr. President, the Nominating Com-
mittee reports the following nominations:

President, Luther Stowell Conger, Aledford; Vice-President,
Dr. Edmund Channing Stowell, Marlboro, New Hampshire; Sec-
retary, Thomas Johnston Homer, Jr.; Treasurer, James A. Stow-
ell; Executive Committee: Luther Stowell Conger, Dr. Edmund
C. Stowell, Thomas J. Homer, Jr., James A. Stowell, Walpole;
Dr. Fred A. Stowell, Newburyport; Jean H. Stowell, Somerville;
Frank Caleb Stowell, Medford; Winifred L. Stowell. Jr.. South
Weymouth, and Henry M. Stowell, Walpole.

MR. LEON C. STOWELL: I have been asked to entertain the
motion that this report of the Nominating Committee be accepted.
Will somebody make that motion?

(It was moved and seconded that the report of the Nomi-
nating Committee be accepted, and that the officers nomi-
nated be elected for the ensuing year. The question was put
and the motion prevailed without dissent.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: I hope that we can continue our work
next year and make as much progress as we have made in the
past.

In connection with the remarks of the Secretary about the work
that has been done, we have had a combination job of corre-
sponding secretary and recording secretary. The job is getting
too big for one person with the limited time which can be devoted
to it, and I wish to submit to you this afternoon the suggestion
that two new offices be created, one of corresponding secretary,
to separate the recording and corresponding into two offices, and
also an assistant corresponding secretary. Can I hear what you
wish done in that matter? You are an incorporated body, and
it is for you to decide one way or the other on it.

MISS RICHARDSON: Mr. President, I move that that be
referred to the Executive Committee with power to act.

(The motion was seconded, the question was put, and the
motion prevailed without dissent.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: James Allyn Stowell feels that dis-
tance precludes his handling the affairs of the treasurer's office.
I can appreciate the position in which he is placed. He is travel-
ing through the South, and it would be better if someone could
handle it who is close by.

DR. E, CHANNING STOWELL: Do I understand that Mr.
James Stowell has moved to Florida?

PRESIDENT CONGER: He has not moved to Florida. He is
in Florida working for the people in Walpole whom he represents.
His family is in Walpole, but there is a possibility of their moving
to Florida.

DR. E. CHANNING STOWELL: Has he resigned?

PRESIDENT CONGER: He sent his resignation to me. He
had done such excellent work that I did not feel I should accept
it. I do not even want to present it.

The Nominating Committee have renominated the old officers,
and I was in hopes James could be prevailed upon to hold the

— 34 —

office because he has been a most excellent treasurer, and his
books are a model of perfection. He was speaking to me about
it this afternoon and said that he thought he would like to get
out of it.

DR. E. CHANNING STOWELL: I can see how it would almost
force him out of it if his work is transferred to Florida. There-
fore, Mr. President, I move that we accept the resignation of
Mr. James Stowell from the office of Treasurer, and send him a
vote of thanks and appreciation.

(The motion was duly seconded, the question was put,
and the motion prevailed without dissent.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: That now leaves the treasurership of
the association open, and we are in line for suggestions for nomi-
nations for that position.

DR. E. CHANNING STOWELL: Mr. President. I move that Mr.
Lincoln Winifred Stowell, Jr. be elected treasurer, and that the
President be authorized to cast one vote of the association for
him.

(The motion was seconded, the question was put. and the
motion carried without dissent.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: The President has cast the vote as
directed, and I will ask the new treasurer to come to the front,
so we may all get acquainted with him. (Applause.)

I am not going to read this letter from Mrs. Homer, because we
have not time. If any of you wish to see it after the meeting you
may do so.

With regard to the report of the Treasurer, as Mr. James Allyn
Stowell has been in the South the books were turned over to me.
I have had no opportunity to go through them. 1 do not know
whether it is the wish of the association to appoint an auditing
committee to go over them.

I can say, roughly speaking, that in the trust fund covering the
life memberships which have been received we had four life
memberships last year, making a total of $100, which was put
on interest in the Walpole Trust Company of Walpole, .Wassa-
chusetts. On July 1. 1926, we had on deposit there $104.12.

On the same date there was deposited another life membership
which came in from Mr. Arthur Harding, whose sister. Mrs. Wat-
son, is with us this afternoon. Mr. Harding is retired Lieutenant
Commander in the United States Navy, and is at present at sea, I
believe.

I am not able to give you any definite report from the treasurer
as to the receipts and disbursements other than in a general way.
1 hope a detailed report can be gotten up and printed, and sent to
each one of the membership. I can say, however, that we
received some $300 or $400 in membership fees, and some con-
tributions. Practically all of that money was expended in getting
the association under way. There have been a few outstanding
bills which had to wait. For instance, our incorporation bill of
$55 has all been paid except $25.

We bought 500 copies of the Transcript last year for publicity
purposes. That cost us $25, and that bill still remains unpaid.
An organization must have tools with which to keep its records,
and I was able to get a second hand cabinet which was in very
good condition in which to keep the membership cards. They
have been separated into states under the name Stowell and
under other names, and they have been separated according to
the cities in the states. The folders have been numbered, and a
great deal of that kind of organization work has been done, but it
means more hard work to get things into shape and to get the
letters answered and the data furnished to the people who want
it. But when I get home at night and find 18 or 20 letters from
different people throughout the country asking for information
it shows that we are on the right track.

After coming out of the hospital last fall I went to Philadelphia,
Washington, and New York, and I visited every Stowell I could
find on our membership list in Washington. The result was that
I found three members of the family who lived within three blocks
of each other and did not know that they were related to each
other in any particular. I went with Miss Elizabeth Stowell to
see Mrs. Waterman way over at the other end of the city.

Miss Richardson, who is with us today, and who sold the
tickets at the entrance, was in Washington at the meeting of the
Daughters of the American Revolution. She had been given the
names of Mrs. Waterman and Mrs. Tarring, and had been
requested to look them up. She was very busy and did not pay
any attention to it until the Convention was over, and when she
did have an opportunity to look them up she found she had been
working side by side with both of those women during the time
of the Convention.

I have a letter from Mrs. Waterman saying that if anybody
from Washington attended this meeting today she would like to
have them call the Stowells of Washington together. and give
them a resume of this meeting upon their return. I have written
to Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell and told him I have appointed him
chairman in Washington and I want him to get the bunch together
in Washington and start the thing off.

— 36 —

Returning to the treasurer's report, the returns from member-
ships have been about $200. There have been contributions
some of which have come voluntarily to me.

Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell sent a check for $10 for a sustaining
membership for two years.

We do not like to plead for money, but I think you folks will
agree with me that you cannot run an institution of this kind
without money. Two, three, four, or five dollars from each of
you, as you feel able, is not asking very much, considering the
time and expense involved today. We have our reporter and our
music, part of our luncheon expenses, and different things in con-
nection with this meeting. You have taken care of the luncheon
part of it, but I am referring to the extras, such as cigars and
cigarettes, and things that go to make the meeting worth while.

I also went to considerable expense with reference to the
exhibit back there which I do not feel that I ought to have to pay
out of my own pocket, because in the last year I have put about
$250 of my own money in working up the details of this associa-
tion.

We had our photograph taken, and that is going to cost money.
You can get copies of it by putting your name on the photograph
slips. The picture will cost $1.75 delivered. The photographer
charged us $15 for coming, and the prints are $1 apiece. We
have to prorate the $15 over the pictures that have been taken.
I think the picture is an exceptionally good one. Each person is
registered, and we can send a typewritten list of the numbers on
their respective tags.

For the work of the next year the following committees are
appointed. I will not make complete appointments for each com-
mittee, but the committees and their chairmen are as follows:

Nominating Committee for next year, Edmund Channing
Stowell, Marlboro, New Hampshire; Committee for the 1927
meeting, Mrs. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell; Publicity Committee.
Grace Wing, Portland; Coat-of-Arms Committee, Gordon Wing,
Portland; Automobile Committee, Eugene H. Stowell; Auditing
Committee for this year, Edmund Channing Stowell; Exhibit Com-
mittee, Thomas Johnston Homer, Jr.; Music Committee, James
Allyn Stowell. Then we will have an Amusement Committee to
take care of the little ones.

Now 1 want to ask you what you wish to do relative to the
meeting of next year. We have a wonderful setting at Pomfret
for the kind of meeting we are planning. It is just as fine a setting
as you have here, with a broader and wider expanse of land.
There are many points of interest there, for from that section
came three-fourths of the Stowells throughout the country.

I had the matter of the meeting up with the manager of the

— 37—

Ben Grovener Inn, which has been in that particular family for
five generations. The church adjoins the Inn, and there are very
fine grounds there, including a fine golf course and fine cottages,
buildings with 50 or 60 rooms. If any of us find it necessary to
stay over night they can take care of us.

A year ago Mr. Grovener wrote me that they would be very
glad to take care of us and give us a very good time, and we will
have a wonderful opportunity to bring out the pageant effect of
which a suggestion was given you this afternoon.

Pomfret Center is about five miles from Putnam. It is a very
wealthy section for New York multi-millionaires. The estates
down there are exceedingly pretentious, and Pomfret School for
Boys, one of the ultra-fashionable schools, is just across the road
from the Inn. I doubt if you will have to go more than twice as
far as we now are from Boston. It may be about 45 miles.

Mr. Stowell from Maryland, what do you think of Pomfret
Center?

MR. STOWELL: It is nearer Maryland.

PRESIDENT CONGER: Mr. Stowell of Freeport, what do you
think about it?

MR. STOWELL: I would be in favor of it if the majority
favor it.

PRESIDENT CONGER: Last year three people who would not
come here said they would go to Pomfret. None of them are here
this year, but if we go to Pomfret Center next year they will
be with us.

There are no Stowells in that vicinity at the present time. The
only thing you know about the Stowells down there is what they
call Stowell Hills over in Abington, about two miles from Pomfret
Center.

The suggestion has been made that something definite ought
to be done today, while we are here, to get a concensus of opin-
ion as to what we ought to do.

MISS GRACE STOWELL: I am quite sure we would all enjoy
going to Pomfret. My great-grandfather came from Pomfret.

OLIVE CARTIER: Mr. President, I move that we meet next
year at Pomfret Center, Connecticut.

(The motion was duly seconded, the question was put,
and the motion carried without dissent.)

PRESIDENT CONGER: I hope each of you will boost that
meeting next year and will attend if it is at all possible.

I have said something about the expenses. Those of you who
have already contributed toward the expense of the meeting in
any way, outside of your membership dues, will not consider
yourselves solicited at this time, but the only way that I can bring
it to your attention in a general way is at a time like this. There
will be a subscription list on one of the tables in the rear, and
there are expenses to be met. Roughly speaking, I would think
the expenses of this meeting today will be somewhere from $100
to $150, and the membership fees at the present time have not
been enough to take care of it. If everyone would respond so
that we could get $300 it would help greatly. I do hope each
one of you will try to do your bit. If you think I am putting
something before you that I should not, please tell me so frankly.
I do not want to burden you with that sort of thing.

Let us close by singing one verse of "The Star Spangled
Banner," after which we will be dismissed with the benediction.

(The meeting joined in singing "The Star Spangled Ban-
ner" and was then dismissed with the benediction by Rev. A.
Edward Martin.)

LETTER OF MARY ADAL.INE STOWELL.

Venice, Italy, June 23, 1926.
Dear Mr. Conger:

Your letter requesting some account of my travels which could be
read at the annual meeting of the Stowell Family Association, caused
me something akin to consternation.

I have little strength and I make no pretense of being a writer.
It is one thing to be able to interest one's friends and quite a differ-
ent matter to interest a group of people to whom one is a stranger,
even though the name be the same. However, if I have anything
which others would enjoy, surely I ought to be willing to share it.
So I started out to make some notes, which soon had to be tucked
away in my trunk as I packed for the next lap of my journey. Not
until today have I been able to take them out again — and now the
time is up; for this must 'be mailed at once if you are to receive it
before July — . (I don't know the date of the meeting. 1 I shall
just have to jot down what I can about the first part of my trip and
hope that my audience will not be too critical. I might cite the
instance of pioneer days in the Far West, where a certain church
displayed the sign: ""Don't shoot the organist — he's doing the best
he can."

It would be difficult to write anything at all without singing the

— S9—

praises of the Dollar Line; for so much of my comfort and happiness
on the entire trip has been due to the fine service which they main-
tain and the great courtesy and kindness of all the officials, both on
board the steamers and in the offices on shore. In fact, it was this
unique service which induced me to take just this kind of a trip, for
it is "Traveling made easy."

For the sake of those who might like to take a similar trip, as
well as to make clear what follows here. I will say that this line
sends a boat from New York every two weeks, sailing through the
Panama Canal and westward around the world, making stops in
different countries where one can disembark and travel, to return
to the port in two or four or six weeks and re-embark on the boat
whose date best fits in with one's prearranged schedule.

If one does not care to stay over at each stop, it is possible to go
ashore for at least a whole day of sightseeing, as all landings are
made by daylight; and at some ports the ship remains two or three
days. The boats carry freight as well as passengers and this makes
them unusually steady.

Our first stop was at Havana, which was not so characteristically
Spanish as I had expected; but it was interesting to visit the church
that Columbus is said to have attended, and to drive into the coun-
try where we saw bananas, pineapples and alligator pears growing.

In Panama there was much more that was characteristic, both in
the town itself and in the surrounding scenery, and in this latitude
we were able to see the constellation of the Southern Cross.

Turning northward we passed stunning mountain shapes on the
coast of Lower California and came to Lcs Angeles, where we had
a day and a half, and San Francisco, where we stayed from Wed-
nesday to Saturday.

From there to Honolulu is just a week; and our day on shore gave
us much pleasure, particularly the drive to Pali, a view so beautiful
that one can scarcely believe it is real.

A steamer leaving Honolulu is a pretty sight, for the natives have
the custom of presenting their friends who are sailing with wreaths
of flowers. These are hung about the neck like a long, soft neck-
lace, and everybody has one — men. women and children. Some
have four or five. Then, when the steamer starts, colored streamers
are thrown out, and with the orchestra playing the whole might
easily be a scene in an opera.

A little further out in the Pacific we were treated to something
not down on the schedule — half a dozen waterspouts chasing each
other and sometimes chasing our ship. Fortunately they were
small ones, so there was not any real danger; but it was quite excit-
ing to watch the funnel forming in the clouds and gradually
stretch downward until it made its whirlpool in the water. One of
the ship's officers stood on a platform with his pistol ready to shoot
and break the vacuum if they came too near; and once one came
very close to the boat, but turned and sped the other way just in
time to save us a drenching.

Now my time is up and I haven't even landed myself in Japan,
nor told of how we got into the war in China, missed our boat in
Shanghai, and were glad to get out of the country by taking a Dutch
freighter to Indo-China and Java, where we hadn't intended going
at all. However, there is more time coming; and if ainyone is
interested to hear more of my exploits, perhaps it can sometime be
arranged. Several of my friends have asked me to put some record
of my experiences into pamphlet form, and I may possibly do so.

— 40 —

I expect to return to the good old I". S. A. in November. It is-
very interesting to travel, and it's nicer to get back home!

My best greetings to the Stowell Family; and if I have Dot written
anything that is useful to you for the annual mutiny, don I
that you must use it.

Perhaps you will like to know that this paper is Japanese. One
of my friends calls it a "letter by the yard."

Yours very sincerely,

MARY A. STOWELL

My European address is care Thos. Cook and Son, Naples. Italy.

(The foregoing letter was received by me too late to be read at the
meeting. — Luther Conger Stowell. i

41

COTHELESTONE CHURCH

(Near Cothelestone Vicarage)

Taunton, Somerset

Translation of the Inscription on the Epistle Side of the Altar
of Cothelestone Church.

Here hath been placed

John Stawell of Cothelestone

Of the most noble Order of the Bath Soldier of Foot

As his wife he led [to the altar] Elizabeth

Of Edward Hext of Ham in County Somerset

Soldier of Horse [of the troop] "Aura", daughter and heir

By whom he begot sons

John George Rudolph of their father [aides-de-camp]

Edward -Soldier of Horse of the "Aura"

Thomas Ferdinand Richard William Robert

Daughters also Lucia Maria deceased [both] without issue

The Rebellion increasing

Great numbers of horse and foot at his own expense in

Aid of the King he raised

After the loss of his household, the destruction of his [estates],

[and the endurance of] imprisonments and other calamities

Upon the return ardently longed-for of his King

Charles the Second, rejoicing over that

Day he died

On the xxi. day of February A. D. MDCLXI

In the year of his age 61

To a father most dear George his son hath erected this monument.

-42-

a, l.il.

Rtvo J. D. GEDGE,

COTHELE8TONE VICARAGE
TAUNTON,

■OUT.

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-43-

Translation of the Inscription on the Gospel Side of the Altar
of Cothelestone Church.
Here lies John Stawell
Soldier of Foot of the Bath, son of John
Stawell Soldier of Foot, and father of John
Stawell Soldier of Foot of the Bath in
This chancel upon the opposite [side] placed: Who
Died on the twenty-third day of January
And in the year of Our Lord 1603.

Translated by T. J. Homer on the 27 June, 1926, with the great
help of his memory of a rapid oral translation made for him by
Vicar Gedge as they stood before the inscriptions on the 2 2 June,
192 6.

— 44-

^ -£ J**>*»*.2fc*

-45-

REGISTRATION LIST OF THOSE ATTENDING
THE SECOND ANNUAL, MEETING OF THE STOWELL ASSOCIATION

10 Luther Stowell Conger, #20A Garden Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, Mass.

11 Leonidas Townsend Kinch Stowell, North Road, Kingston, R. I.

12 Alfred Davis Stowell, North Road, Kingston, R. I.

13 iiiss Josephine G. Richardson, Boston, Mass.

14 Doctor Edmund Channing Stowell, Marlboro, N. H.

15 Mrs. Viola A. Goding, Canton, Massachusetts.

16 Kenneth Lovewell Goding, Canton, Massachusetts.

17 Percy Hilton Howe, Brookline, Massachusetts.

18 Mrs. Emma Frances Stowell Newell, Derry, N. H.

19 Miss Mercy M. Hunt, Weymouth Heights, Massachusetts.

20 Mrs. Callie Ward Stowell, Dalton, Massachusetts.

21 Master Ralph Ward Stowell, Dalton, Massachusetts.

22 Henry Marshall Stowell, Dalton, Massachusetts.

23 Mrs. Sarah Evelyn Morse, Medway, Massachusetts.

24 Mrs. Emily Prances Lewis Morse, Medway, Mass.

25 Mabel B. Morse, Worcester, Massachusetts.

26 Mrs. Olive Stowell Cartier, Natick, Massachusetts.

27 Eugene Charles Leslie Morse, Worcester, Massachusetts.

28 Thomas Johnson Homer, Jr., Boston, Massachusetts.

29 Mrs. William Belcher Stowell, Riverside, R. I.

30 Herbert Jackman Stowell, Riverside, R. I.

31 Charles S. MacDougal, Warren, R. I.

:i2 Mrs. Lottie Hastings (Stebbins) MacDougal, Warren, R. I.

33 Richard MacDougal, Warren, R. I.

3 4 Warren MacDougal, Warren, R. I.

35 Robert MacDougal, Warren, R. I.

36 Helen Agatha Stowell, Stoneham, Massachusetts.

37 Mrs. Ella Louise Stowell, Stoneham, Massachusetts.

38 Mrs. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell, Montello, Massachusetts.

39 Rev. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell, Montello, Massachusetts.

40 John Milton Stowell, Stoneham, Massachusetts.

41 Mrs. Bertha Stowell Mendell, West Somerville, Massachusetts.

42 Mrs. Ella Frances Stowell Ruggles, Arlington, Massachusetts.

43 Frances Louise Mendell, West Somerville, Massachusetts.

44 John Warren Stowell, Federalsburg, Maryland.

45 Charles L. Stowell, Somerville, Massachusetts.

46 Mrs. Henry A. Dumont, Brookline, Massachusetts.

47 Henry A. Dumont, Brookline, Massachusetts.

48 Mrs. Elizabeth Stowell Maltby, Stoughton, Massachusetts.

49 Miss Priscilla Maltby, Stoughton, Massachusetts.

50 Miss Florence Martin, Worcester, Massachusetts.

51 Mrs. Bertha Stowell Martin, Worcester, Massachusetts.

52 Stowell Coolidge Goding, Canton, Massachusetts.

53 Rev. A. Edward Martin, Worcester, Massachusetts.

54 John Stowell, Freeport, Maine.

55 Mrs. John Stowell, Freeport, Maine.

56 Miss Mildred Pearson Stowell, Freeport, Maine.

57 Mrs. Helen Stowell Ratcliffe, Newton, Massachusetts.

58 Mrs. Kate Moll, Newton, Mass.

&9 Mrs. Florence D. Stowell, Kingston, R. I.

60 Mildred Florence Stowell, Kingston, R. I.

61 Mrs. Abbie Augusta Sweet Lang, Antrim, N. H.

62 Mattie Luce Stowell, Somerville, Massachusetts.

63 Grace Ludlow Stowell, Somerville, Massachusetts.

64 Mrs. Marian Webster Sandbrook, Brookline, Massachusetts.

65 Mrs. Carrie Stowell, Schenectady, N. Y.

66 A. C. Stowell, Schenectady, N. Y.

67 H. A. Stowell, Northampton, Massachusetts.

68 Mrs. Harry Ashton Stowell, Northampton, Massachusetts.

69 Edmund Mason, Norwood, Massachusetts.

70 Mrs. Edmund Mason, Norwood, Massachusetts.

71 Mrs. Eugene A. Stowell, Billerica, Massachusetts.

72 Mrs. Alice Stowell Elder, Billerica, Massachusetts.
7 3 Alexander Stowell Elder, Billerica, Massachusetts.

-74 Alice Eugenia Elder, Billerica, Massachusetts.

75 Helen Eloise Elder, Billerica, Massachusetts.

76 Leon Carl Stowell, 154 Nassau St., New York City.

77 Elvin Delson Stowell, Orange, Massachusetts.

78 Carlon Nelson Stowell, Orange, Massachusetts.

79 Mrs. Carlon Nelson Stowell, Orange. Massachusetts.

80 Jean H. Stowell, Somerville, Massachusetts.

81 Mrs. Jean H. Stowell, Somerville, Massachusetts.

82 Mrs. Lulu Seaver Snow, Whitinsville, Massachusetts.

83 Charles S. Snow. Whitinsville, Massachusetts.

— 46 —

84 C. Sumner Snow, Jr., Whitfnsville, Massachusetts

85 Mrs. Annie Hunter Knowlton, Hingham, Massachusetts

86 Clarence Hinckley Knowlton, Hingham, Massa.

87 Fannie L. Stowell, Newtonville, Massachusette

88 Mrs. Alice L. McManamon, Newtonville, Massachusetts

89 Grace E. Stowell, Kensington, Conn.

90 Emily M. Sibley, Newtonville, Massachusetts

91 Mrs. Martha Stowell Watson, East Boston, Massachusetts

92 Miss Gertrude Pike, Winthrop, Massachusetts.

93 Miss Henrietta S. Pike, Winthrop, Massachusetts.

94 Richard Newton, Dorchester, Massachusetts

95 Annie E. Newton, Dorchester, Massachusetts.

96 Florence M. Henson. Everett, Massachusetts

97 Joseph Goodhead, Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts

98 Mrs. Winifred L. Stowell, Jr., South Weymouth, Massachusetts

99 Winfred Lincoln Stowell, Jr., South Wevmouth, Massachusi

100 Meredith Daniels Stowell, South Wevmouth, Massachusetts

101 Anthony R. Price, Brighton, Massachusetts.

102 Mrs. Margaret Homer Shurtleff. Boston, Massachusetts.

103 John Oldham, Loughborough, England.

104 John R. Henson, Everett, Massachusetts.

105 Ei-nest Weatherby, Montreal, Canada.

106 Mary E. Hough, Hingham, Massachusetts.

107 Louise Gates, Hingham Center, Massachusetts.

108 Helen F. Burr, Hingham, Massachusetts.

109 Helena Anderson, Hingham, Massachusetts.

110 Alton E. Stowell, Haverhill, Massachusetts.

The number preceding name is for identification on the official
photograph.

-4 7—

c&hird Annual ^Meeting

Starwell family Association

incorporated

ftteldin "Old Ship" ^Meeting SKouse
Bingham, SWass.

Saturday, September 10, 1027
President Luther Stowell Conger Presiding

Xr

CSlf

< V

ifdJ*~&7

^hird Annual ^Meeting

Stoivell family dissociation

incorporated

^Keld in crOld Ship" ^Meeting ^Kouse
Bingham, £Mass.

Saturday, September 10, 1927
President Luther Stowell Conger Presiding

[The members of the Association present assembled for
luncheon in the parish house at 1 P. M., and grace was offer-
ed by the Rev. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell, as follows:]

Our Father, we thank Thee for all Thy good to us. Help us to
remember that our bodies are temples to Thy spirit, and may we
eat and drink to Thine honor and glory. Amen.

[During the progress of the luncheon the company was
entertained by the singing by Mrs. Woodbury Sweetser
Stowell of a number of solos and songs, "Smiles" and "Long,
Long Trail" being among the number.

At the conclusion of the luncheon the following took
place:]

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Mr. President of the Stowell
Association: I think we are very appreciative of this delightful
luncheon that has been prepared for us by the ladies of the Lend-
a-Hand Association here, and I should like to move a vote of
thanks to these ladies for their cordiality and hospitality.

The PRESIDENT. You have heard the motion. Does it meet
with a second?

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that a vote of
thanks be extended to the ladies of the Lend-a-Hand Society for
the luncheon which they have served us this afternoon.

J A,

[The motion is put and carried unanimously by a show of
hands.]

The PRESIDENT. I understand I made a mistake. I under-
stand there are several ways of signifying how you feel about it.
I thought I was going to get a rousing number of ayes here that
would take the roof off the place. Instead of that I got a very
silent indication. If you are in favor of it, signify it by saying,
"Aye".

[The company responded with a chorus of ayes.]

The PRESIDENT. If I can have your attention for about five
minutes, we are moving on pretty good schedule time. It is a
little better to say here in this room, where we are a little closer
together and there is more of a homey atmosphere than over in
the church, a few of the things I want to bring to your attention
at this time.

We have today with us quite a number of people from a dis-
tance. I believe those who are the farthest away came all the
way from California, and it seems that last September the niece
of the gentleman who is here from California today wrote our
secretary that she hoped she would be here this year. I happened
to run across that letter I think about ten days or two weeks ago,
and I immediately wrote Miss Wilhelmina Stowell of Beverly
Hills. I was very much surprised to get a letter from her stating
that she would be unable to come, but that her uncle, Nathan
Wilson Stowell and wife of Los Angeles were leaving the 5th for
Boston, and that her sister, Mrs. Fitch and her husband, Mr. Or-
lando P. Fitch, were at Claremont, New Hampshire, and would
be here at this time. I am going to ask those to stand up at this
time, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Wilson Stowell of Los Angeles, and
Mr. and Mrs. Fitch. I want you all to know them.

[The persons addressed rise.]

Mr. STOWELL. I think I will have to stand up twice, because
my wife was ill this morning, and not able to come.

The PRESIDENT. We are sorry for that, I assure you.

Now, to bring the thing a little closer here, you remember a
year ago we had with us Mrs. Morse of Medway, I believe it is,
ninety-two years of age. She is with us again today, and I am
going to ask her if she will stand at this time.

[The lady addressed rises.]

The PRESIDENT. Now, I wonder who the youngest is here
today. Who is the youngest here? Here he is. Stand up, Buddy.
[The child addressed rises.] This is John Lewis Mitchell of
Lowell, Massachusetts. The great-grandmother of this little fel-
low was a Stowell. He is five years old.

I am going to go around this table and introduce the members

—2—

of our executive committee and some o fthe other members from
distant parts of the country. I will start in with Mr. Jean H. Stpw-
ell of Somerville and ask him to rise, so that you will know who
he is. [The member addressed rises.]

Mr. Henry Miles Stowell of Walpole. [The member addressed
rises.]

Mrs. Alexander Stowell of Billerica. [The member addressed
rises.]

I have got to stop for a minute and tell you a little bit about
the next two people that I am going to introduce you to. We had
our minutes taken last year by a reporter. They were typed,
and when the copy got to me it was quite extensive, some sixty
or seventy typewritten pages. Knowing the content of our treas-
ury, I knew we could not have it printed. Mr. J. W. Stowell of
Federalsburg, Maryland, wrote me a letter and offered to print
the minutes, and offered to give us 500 copies of them. You are
indebted to him for the pamphlet which was sent to you with the
announcement of this year's meeting. I take the pleasure of in-
troducing Mr. J. W. Stowell and his wife of Federalsburg, Mary-
land, at this time. [The members addressed rise.]

The Rev. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell of Montello, Mass., and
our treasurer, Mr. Winfred Lincoln Stowell, Jr., of South Wey-
mouth. [The members addressed rise.]

Our good looking secretary, Mr. Thomas Johnston Homer, Jr.
[The member addressed rises.]

One of the surprises of the day is Dr. Harlow Shapley, of Har-
vard Observatory, Cambridge. [The member addressed rises.]

Our speaker of our first year, Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell of Wash-
ington, D. C. [The member addressed rises.] And the lady to
his left is a guest whose name I do not know.

I announced in the letter that we had a surprise for you in the
way of a speaker. You will find that out when we adjourn to
the church, but I guess the biggest surprise was to myself today
when I was notified by a member of the Family that they had been
in New Hampshire this summer and heard that I had gotten mar-
ried. That was really a surprise, because I didn't know any such
thing was about to happen. Now, for the little folks that are here
today there has been a committee appointed, and they will take
charge of them while the other people are enjoying the talks of
the afternoon. So Miss Mildred P. Stowell of Freeport, Maine,
has a little program for them. I am going to ask Miss Mildred
to stand at this time so the little fellows will know who she is.
[The member addressed rises.]

With reference to your dues, some members of the Association
last year said to me that while they were here and tried to turn
some money in, they found nobody wanted to take it. They
didn't see me! Our secretary, Mr. Thomas Homer, and the treas-
urer, Mr. Wilfred Lincoln Stowell, will certainly be very glad to
relieve you of any money you want to entrust- to their care, I am
quite sure.

—3—

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Mr. President, you asked me
to make the motion before, as to what I felt, and I make this sug-
gestion without anybody suggesting that I should make it, and
that is that these meetings cost a good deal of money for the As-
sociation and the dues do not always cover it. We do not like
to turn our meetings into dunning people for money. They are
just the ones that ought not to have the burden put on them. I
shall make a small contribution myself to this meeting, it is a
delightful meeting, and I hope all of the others will do so, because
I am very much impressed with the balance sheet of this associa-
tion that the outstanding bills were only $70, and they had a
working balance of $108. I think it is a pretty remarkable show-
ing, considering what has been done, and I am going to make a
small contribution for the expenses of this meeting. I hope others
will turn in what they can to help make this Association a great
success.

The PRESIDENT. Just along that line may I give you this in-
formation, that our first year we guaranteed 75. We had 120
present. Last year we guaranteed again 75 and had 110 present.
This year we guaranteed 85 and we have 61. The difference has
to come out of the treasury of the Association to meet the deficit
along this line. We have found this out due to the fact of the
meeting being held in September. From what I have seen this
is not the logical time to hold it. We are having a perfectly
wonderful day outside, but it is the opening of the fall schools and
work is resuming, and it does seem as if July was the logical time
to have our meeting as people are wanting to get away.

I simply did not have the physical strength or the health to get
out the work that was necessary. Since the 4th day of July I
have written 125 personal letters and had four people working
the entire day from seven in the morning to ten at night to get
out the minutes, membership statements, and the like of that, and
it involves a great deal of work. I just wanted to leave that part
of it with you.

Turning to my left I find I have unintentionally neglected to
introduce one of the members of the family that I certainly was
glad to have the card from stating that she was coming. This
time I want to introduce Mrs. Harriet King Headrick of New
York City, who is considered one of the leading bond saleswomen
of the country and is with the banking firm of Bonbright & Com-
pany. Mrs. Headrick. [The member addressed rises.]

Now, I think we will have a solo by Mrs. Stowell and then an-
other sing, and then we will adjourn to the church across for the
balance of our meeting.

[A solo was rendered by Mrs. Woodbury Sweetser Stow-
ell.]

The PRESIDENT. I want to make this announcement. We
have a little exhibition over in the church of different things I have

collected in the last two years. A great many of them were here-
last year. Requests have been made for certain of the pictures
that are there. If there is not enough of the supply to furnish
those who want them, if they will just leave an order with Mr.
Kenneth Goding — Kenneth, will you just rise, please? [The mem-
ber addressed rises.] If you will just leave your order with Mr.
Goding, he will see that you get the proper pictures that you
want. He has the prices on them, and any of them can be fur-
nished that you want.

Mrs. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. I think for the
closing number we might sing, "Auld Lang Syne".

[Singing of "Auld Lang Syne".]

The PRESIDENT. Mr. Morris has a suggestion he wants to
make.

Mr. MORRIS. I understand that this is the closing number. It
seems to me as descendants of some of the very earliest settlers
that this country knew that it would be quite appropriate if we
closed with "America", and I think everybody knows "America."
I will make one more suggestion, — [to the President] this is for
your private use, if anybody overhears it, — that before we have
our songfest next year, if we could get some of those old-fashion-
ed hymn books that most of the people know the tunes and songs
in, we would get a good deal more volume to the chorus.

The PRESIDENT. Like "Silver Threads Among the Gold"?
All right, may we have one verse of "America", and let us all
stand for that, please. Then we are to go across the street in the
meeting house.

[Singing of "America".]

[The meeting was called to order in the "Old Ship" Meet-
ing House at 2.50 P. M. by the President.]

The PRESIDENT. We have already had one verse of "Ameri-
ca", so let us open with one verse of No. 101, in the Hymnals,
"Faith of our Fathers".

[Singing of "Faith of our Fathers".]

[The following prayer was offered by the Rev. Woodbury
Sweetser Stowell.]

"Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that Thou wilt
guide our family footsteps through the coming years as Thou
didst by Thy spirit guide Thy servant, Moses, to lead the children
of Israel, out into the promised land. May the years that stretch
before us be as bright for us, with such promises as Thou hast
given to those that love Thee. Our Father, if there are any of

—5—

our kin in this country or in the world today who are sick or who
are unfortunate, we pray that Thou wilt be with them at this
hour and give them the peace which passeth all understanding.
In His name. Amen."

The PRESIDENT. Our meeting last year dragged a little bit.
I am going to try and put through the business just as quickly as
we can, and with your cooperation we can do that. I will ask for
the reading of the minutes of last year's meeting at this time.
Our secretary?

The SECRETARY. (Mr. Homer.) I think that the reading of
the minutes of last year's meeting has been done by all of us in
the red booklet which was sent out at the time we announced
this meeting. In other words, that red booklet is the minutes of
last year's meeting, and I think that it is only necessary that it be
adopted as such.

Dr. ELLERV CORY STOWELL. I move that the minutes as
incorporated in the red book be accepted.

[The motion is accepted and carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT. We will have a report of the executive
committee which convened this morning.

The SECRETARY. Just before I mention that, we held an ex-
ecutive committee meeting about the 30th of July, relative to set-
tling on the time of the annual meeting of this year. It was
originally planned that the meeting be held in June, and that the
meeting be held at Pomfret, Connecticut, but we were not able to
bring that about. We finally got our executive committee to-
gether on the 30th of July, and settled the big point of to-
day's meeting, and that was the main feature of that particular
meeting. Now, this morning we had an executive committee
meeting, and the first and principal point proposed was that Mr.
Leon Carl Stowell of New York City last year offered to pay for
the costumes which were used in the little pageant effect feature
which we had in the meeting last year, some of the members
coming through the church here in clothes of various periods in
the last two centuries. That amounted to quite a bit of money,
and in view of that the Committee thought that it would be a
courtesy to offer Mr. Leon C. Stowell a two years' membership
without further payment.

Another important, and very important point which was
brought up was the question of auditing the books of the Asso-
ciation, and that was settled to the effect that the next president
to be elected would appoint an outside man or organization,
preferably a certified public accountant, to make an audit of our
books, and then, if possible, to send out to the membership a
printed financial statement.

The Committee also discussed several other points proposed,
one of which was the question of organizing a vital statistics
committee and to get general and yet concise data regarding the

—6—

occupation and various characteristics of the membership at large.
That is a thing we hope to get started on. It was first men-
tioned by Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell three years ago, and it has
just simply been brought up again to see if we cannot get start-
ed on this feature of activity, and I hope we can, if we can get it
moving. I think that constituted the main features of the execu-
tive committee meeting this morning.

The PRESIDENT. You have heard this report. What is your
pleasure with reference to it? Is there any discussion?

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I move that it be accepted.

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved that the report as given by the
secretary of the meeting of the executive committee be accepted.

[The motion is carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT. At this time we will have a report of the
secretary for last year.

The SECRETARY. I do not know as I have very much to say
as a report for last year. It has really all been said so far as
details, perhaps, are concerned, in the report of the minutes of
last year's meeting in the pamphlet.

I have got two or three figures which might be interesting to
you in connection with the membership. We are running now
into our third year. At the end of the first year we had 224 mem-
bers. Last year a little over 50 members were in arrears and
did not pay up. Since then some of those people have paid up to
date. The total number of memberships on the list for last year
was 167, as compared with 224 for the first year. Now. that
167 should really be increased a little bit, I am not sure just how
much. For this year we already have 100 members paid in.
Last year at the time of the annual meeting I rather doubt if we
had as many as 100 actually paid in, so if that is the case and we
have got 100 paid in now, I think that it looks as though our
membership for this succeeding year, 1927-1928. will in all prob-
ability exceed the membership we had last year, which was 167.
That is, the outlook is quite favorable that we will get back to
the original 224. If we do get back to the 224, why. that will be
fine, and I think it will be an indication of the fact that from now
on we will probably grow in numbers, perhaps not rapidly, but
will be gradually always growing in numbers. Of that 100 or so
that we already have now there are 20 or 25 brand new mem-
bers who have never been in the Association before, and if we
can get 25 brand new members every year, we are progressing as
far as the number of members is concerned. I might mention that
we have got four life members.

I think that constitutes what I have to say as far as Secretary's
report is concerned.

—7—

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. Do I understand that those
hundred names are names that have paid in since the report was
sent out?

The SECRETARY. Practically so. That is, those hundred
names — it is really more than that — are people who have paid
for the year 1927-1928; that is, their dues are paid and their mem-
bership is good until July 1, 1928, and I do not think that at last
year's meeting, which of course was a little bit earlier in the year
"than this, that we had as many names as that paid in advance.

Rev. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. Mr. Secretary,
what constitutes a life member?

The SECRETARY. A person is made a life member by paying
$25 when he so stipulates that they want a life membership. In
that case the $25 that he pays is put into a separate fund and the
Association, as I understand, cannot use any of the principal of
that fund, but may at any time use the income from that fund.
Now, up to date, of course we have not got very many life mem-
bers. We only have four, but, nevertheless, up to date we have
not used a single cent of the income from the fund.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. May I ask if that life fund
could be used if the Society so decided?

The SECRETARY. I feel that the principal cannot be touched.
Can it, Mr. Conger?

The PRESIDENT. I think that is up to the Association.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. If the whole Association
wanted to, they could? Otherwise they would have a fund which
they had no control over.

The PRESIDENT. The fund is controlled by the Association.
They can vote how it is to be used.

If I may say a word in regard to Mr. Homer's report, some of
these memberships he mentioned carry over two or three years.
I have a lady living in Watertown, one in Detroit, Michigan, and
several in the western part of the state which cover periods from
two to five years. There are two five-year memberships
of, annual membership tickets at one dollar each. There is
also $25 given by Mrs. Gardner C. Hill, of Keene, New Hamp-
shire, in memory of her husband, Dr. Gardner C. Hill. The total
of that trust fund is $134.32. We have accumulated that much,
so you see we are earning something. What is your pleasure as
to the report of Mr. Homer?

[On motion, duly made and seconded, it was voted that
the report be accepted.]

The PRESIDENT. Now, the report of the Treasurer. He has
asked me to make this brief statement. I have an itemized re-
port and it would take too long to read it this afternoon. We
will arrange to have it printed and let each one of the Association
have a copy of it. Briefly stated, we had on hand the 15th day
of August $38.47 in the current fund, and the trust fund was

—8—

$134.32 on July 1, 1927. We have accumulated a little interest
since that date. Since then the bills for today's meeting so far
rendered amount to $70.38. The treasurer has on hand to date
$108.47. That was before he landed here today. Mr. Homer
has some money. The treasurer has also taken in some funds.
So that we have probably around $70 or $80 as a balance. But
there are still other bills to come in. For instance, our report of
today's meeting, the bill on that, and some other small bills that
may be rendered.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Mr. President, that financial
report can be seen by anybody who wishes to see it?

The PRESIDENT. Yes. It will be here on the table and any-
body that wish to look at it can peruse it, and just as soon as we
possibly can we will have a copy of it printed and a copy sent to
each member of the Association. What is your pleasure with
this report as I have submitted it briefly?

Dr. SHAPLEY. I move its acceptance.

[The motion was seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that the Treas-
urer's report as briefly outlined by me be accepted.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT. It is so ordered. Now, the reports of regu-
lar or special committees. I am going to ask for a report from
the Music Committee at this time. Mrs. Stowell?

Mrs. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. I have a very
brief report to make. There were some names given to me to
write to to take part in the musical program, but unfortunately I
have not received any answers from those people. They do not
live very far from here, and I was rather disappointed. So that
made Miss Stowell and myself conduct the whole program. But
I would be very much pleased to know the members of this Asso-
ciation who are talented in a musical way, if they will give their
names to me so that next year we can perhaps make our program
a little more varied and a little more interesting all around. That
is all I have to say.

The PRESIDENT. What is your pleasure with reference to
this report?

Dr. SHAPLEY. I move its acceptance.

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that this report be
accepted.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

Mr. GEORGE LOR.ING STOWELL (of Waltham). May I ask a
question, Mr. President? Would the lady please give her address

—9—

so that anyone can communicate with her? Woufd that be in
order?

The PRESIDENT. That would be in order.

Mrs. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. My name is Mrs.
Woodbury S. Stowell, 15 Orchard Avenue, Brockton, Massachu-
setts.

The PRESIDENT. The Entertainment Committee was headed
by Miss Mildred P. Stowell, and she at the present time is carry-
ing on her part of the program on the outside with the little tots.

The report of the Nominating Committee at this time. Mrs.
Ruggles?

Mrs. ELLA F. S. RUGGLES. The Nominating Committee met
on Friday evening, August 26th, at Mrs. Ruggles', 60 Randolph
Street, Arlington, Massachusetts. The following names were pro-
posed for office for the ensuing year, 1927-1928:

President: Dr. Edmund Channing Stowell of Marlborough, New
Hampshire.

Vice President: Thomas Johnston Homer, Jr., 4 Linwood Square,
Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Recording Secretary: Mrs. Lottie H. Stebbins MacDougall, Box
190, Laurel Lane, Warren, Rhode Island.

Corresponding Secretary: Luther Stowell Conger, 20A Garden
Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts.

Treasurer: Winfred Lincoln Stowell, Jr., 758 Main Street, South
Weymouth, Massachusetts.

Executive Committee: Dr. Edmund Channing Stowell, Mrs. Lottie
H. Stebbins MacDougall, Winfred Lincoln Stowell, Jr., Leon-
idas Townsend Kinch Stowell, North Road, Kingston, Rhode
Island; Jean H. Stowell, Thomas Johnston Homer, Jr., Luther
Stowell Conger, Samuel Stowell Symmes, 7 Sanborn Street,
Winchester, Mass.; Mrs. Harriet King Headrick, care Bon-
bright & Co., 25 Nassau Street, New York City, New York.

Respectfully submitted,

ELLA FRANCES STOWELL RUGGLES,

Chairman;
and
MRS. ELLA LOUISE STOWELL,
MRS. H. A. DUMONT,
JEAN H. STOWELL.

The PRESIDENT. You have heard the report of the Nominat-
ing Committee. What is your wish with reference to it? The
ballots I believe, I might say by way of digression, were sent out
to each member, and the Secretary has received marked ballots
from the membership to the number of about 50.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I move that the nominations
be closed.

—10-

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It has been moved and seconded that the
nominations be closed. Are you ready for the question? The
list as read by Mrs. Ruggles is before you. What is your pleas-
ure with reference to it?

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I move that the Secretary be
instructed to cast a ballot for them.

The PRESIDENT. Does that meet with a second?

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that the Secretary
be instructed to cast a ballot for the list as read.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT. It is so ordered.

The time has come for me to step to one side, and due to the
fact that the incoming president is not here the vice president
would assume the chair. Before doing that I would like to bring
some things before you in order to speed up our time as much as
possible. I just want to read off these few things that we have
commented on this morning.

At the Executive Committee meeting we discussed plans for
next year's meeting, whether to have it at Pomfert, Connecticut,
or to attend a clambake in Rhode Island from which place we
had an invitation. That would probably come later on. These
things I just give to you as items that are under discussion by the
Executive Committee and will be taken up and threshed out and
passed on to you later by mail. We may work up a pageant
for next year similar to what we had last year and let everybody
come dressed in some Colonial costume.

The thing I want to stress more than anything else, before I
get out of office as president, is this: The reason why we have
kept down the expense is due to the fact that we have not had
funds in the treasury to carry on the way we should. I have
made the plea here now for the third time. I do not know how I
can stress it, I do not know how I can put it any more plainly
than I have endeavored to put it in the past. I wish you could
step into my home at the present time and see the great mass of
data pertaining to the family that I am collecting. I wish you
could see the letters that I am receiving I would say almost daily
from members of the family throughout the country. Since the
4th day of July the number has gone up. Since the 4th day of
July I have written 125 or more letters to members of the family
throughout the country, a great many of which have involved
much research work, as they had written asking for information.
At the present time I expect I have at home between two and
three hundred letters that should be answered, that have been on
file, some of them addressed to our former treasurer, some of

—11—

them addressed to our secretary, some of them addressed to me,
covering a period of three years. One man wrote three times,
and he got rather indignant when he wrote his last letter and
wanted to know if we kept any information back from him be-
cause his ancestors had been in jail or some other place. The
letter finally got to me. None of them were addressed to me at
all, and they finally reached me, and after two or three months
when I found time and when I saw the sense of the letters, that he
was rather indignant, 1 sat down and wrote the man a rather de-
tailed letter as to why he had not received an answer, and he
wrote back a very apologetic letter and said his sense of justice
had certainly received a very severe jar on receipt of my letter,
and he hoped to be with us this year.

Now, I wish we could only get this accumulation out of the
way. That is why I said this morning that we had gone back to
Puritanical days and had done without this, that and the other
thing in order to keep our expense down and allow me to have
the services of a stenographer from time to time in order to get
this stuff out right.

Pick out pivotal states like Massachusetts, New York, Rhode
Island, Michigan, and appoint directors, and give them a list of
the names and addresses and let them do this pioneer work in
rounding up members in these states, because they are coming
from everywhere. I have had queries from Georgia, Illinois, Ore-
gon, people who have dropped in on me, some of them new
members who wanted information and wanted to know where we
would have our meeting.

I had hoped that this afternoon you folks would see fit to take
some action and let me have the assistance that I so sorely need.
I cannot keep up the pace that I have been going the last three
years. It is a physical impossibility and I have just simply got
to renig and back down, that is all there is to it. There were 250
odd letters sent out with six enclosures in them, and practically
500 statements that had to be rendered this year, and that all
takes time. I had four different files of data to go through in
making up the statement and sending it out in order to see that
everything was just right. I am surprised to see that there have
not been more mistakes made than there have been. That is the
only thing I want. I want help of that character. That is the
only thing I ask from the members of the Association, because
you folks have been sleeping probably while I have been up burn-
ing not only the midnight oil but the morning oil as well.

Later on we will hear about some of these things that I have
noted down here. There is to be a dinner and social time in the
midyear in Boston and New York City. We had a wonderful
time last December in Washington about which you will hear
later. We have members, for instance, that are interested in
publicity work or interested in the family crest. I had a letter
from Mrs. Grace Wing of Portland, whose husband was a special

—12—

representative of the Boston Herald, and she is quite a noted
writer, a Maine woman, very prominent in club work there, and in
the report that was rendered — she got a copy of it — she noted
she was down on the publicity end of it and her son on the her-
aldry end of it, and they had never been notified. The reason
was that the reports were sent out late, and I had not had time to
write them. She is perfectly willing to help, and so is her son, if
they could only be notified of those things in time.

The executive committee will take up the matter of the com-
mittees for next year, and the nominating committee. It was
thought best to have the by-laws printed so each one of the mem-
bers could hear about them. A transcription of today's minutes
we hope can be printed and a copy sent to each member.

I have had calls from the following people, as I stated, four
of them this summer:

Mrs. William C. Rogers of Chicago, 111., whose son lives in
Washington, D. C, and was the one member in Washington last
year who could not be with us because of absence from the city.

Charles Jacob Stowell, who is a professor in McKendree Col-
lege in Lebanon, Illinois.

Mrs. Anna Bassett, whose husband is head of the Health De-
partment in Savannah, Georgia, and her sister, Mrs. Sisson, whose
husband is professor in a college in Portland, Oregon, and they
are on their way east at the present time.

The letters come in to me, and I get a different aspect from
what the rest of the family get in regard to this thing, and I wish
you could have just a slight peep into it. I think Mr. Jean rL
Stowell saw some of the mass that has accumulated and the way
it has been arranged. It has all been chronologically arranged
into files where it can be gotten at. The membership cards are
alphabetically arranged. My name is arranged in the C's, and
all the Stowells datacally and chronologically arranged in such
shape that you can find anybody's membership if you are given
the name of the town immediately.

I have two or three letters that I want to read certain portions
of to you and with these I want to close. Dr. Charles Henry
Stowell of Lowell is still living. His brother, Dr. Thomas Blanch-
ard Stowell of Los Angeles, passed away on the first of August.
I have a very splendid letter from his wife, and I have put up
clippings on the wall there telling of his passing and the tributes
that have been paid to him. It seems there was a very unusual
bond of sympathy between him and his brother in Los Angeles.
I have this letter from him that is addressed to the Association.
He sent me his card first, and the letter followed. The card is
dated September 1st, and says:

"I cannot possibly be present at the meeting of the STOW-
ELL FAMILY ASSOCIATION, Incorporated, but I will send the
following: — Blessed memories of frequent visits to this Charm-
ing Home of my ancestors."

And the letter is as follows:

"Dear Mr. President:

Sorry I am that it is impossible for me to meet with the
largest, the finest, and the grandest of all Family Associations.

But distance availeth nothing when we know where our
thoughts are and where every beat of the heart brings hallowed
memories.

History informs us that once a Jew and an Irishman were
arguing the age-old question which race was the greater. The
Jew held that his race was the superior because he could trace
his family history afar and away into the almost forgotten past.
"Why," said he, "just think of it, I can trace my family back
to the time when they were in Noah's Ark." "That's nothin',"
said Pat, "my family didn't swim around in any borrowed boat.
No Noah's Ark for them! They had an ark all their own!"
The Stowell Family don't need nobody's ark! When they want
a gathering they simply ring the bell in the Hingham Tower,
and from all parts of the globe the happiest people come. They
come, and still year after year they will continue to come.

The foundation of the Stowell Ark was laid by William the
Conqueror, in 10 66, when he gave Adam Stowell the Manor of
Cothelstone, situated in Quantock, Somerset County. The man-
sion is beautiful and extensive. The church, adjoining, is hand-
some and artistic. There were eleven farm-houses and fifty-
four cottages, and over 3000 acres of land.

But the magnificent monument of all is represented here to-
day.

Our Association, with its wonderful background, is a great
Pride Producer. It means something to be a Stowell, today;
and we all now pledge ourselves that the Stowells of tomorrow
will ever prove true to the traditions of our noble Family.
Faithfully yours,

CHARLES H. STOWELL."

Knowing Dr. Stowell as I do, I wonder if I am out of line in
suggesting that as October 27th of this year is his seventy-seventh
birthday, if those of you here who wish to make a note of it will
drop him a line on that day, or, if you see fit to, do it now, be-
cause I am frank to say between now and then he might be called
home, his health is so critical, I think it would make him feel very
grateful. It might not be amiss if somebody saw fit to see that a
word was sent as coming from this body today, as we did once
before.

This letter from the widow of Dr. Thomas Blanchard Stowell
may be of interest to you. These will all be incorporated in the
minutes so that you will all have copies of them. She says:

"I was pleased to receive the announcement of the next meet-
ing of the Stowell Family, and the book of minutes of last
year's meeting, so beautifully printed and so much of interest
in it.

I was moved to tears by your sympathetic personal letter. I
wish you might have known my beloved husband, Thomas
Blanchard Stowell; he was the soul of honor, a distinguished
scholar, gentle and kindly withal, and greatly beloved by his
students and multitude of friends. He bore his long invalid-
ism as only a Christian gentleman could, patient and uncom-
plaining to the end."

—14-

It seems he had creeping paralysis and I think for three or four
years was unable to talk at all.

"The many letters and expressions of regard have been a
great comfort to me, and I am upheld by the lovf of our many
friends and the God-given strength of our Heavenly Fath<r I
am grateful that I could minister to him to the last, and am
praying for strength to still uphold the honor of his loved
name. I am sending you some newspaper clippings for your
files. It seems strange that you should have heard the news of
his death from Maryland, but of course Mr. Stowell being in
the newspaper business" —

and that refers to Mr. J. W. Stowell, who is with us today,

"explains it. Many of our friends wrote me of seeing the notice
in various newspapers.

Dr. Charles H. Stowell is still living but in a very precarious
state of health from heart trouble. He writes very little which
I presume is the reason you have not heard from him. His
wife also is in very poor health. Dr. Charles is in very great
grief over the death of his brother Thomas, — there was more
than a common tie between them.

I presume you know of the lamented death of two of your
valued members within the year — Mrs. Charles H. McKevett
and Miss Maria F. Stowell, both of Los Angeles."

Miss Maria F. Stowell was the lady who sent us by air mail a
letter last year, and wanted to have a hand in the purchase of the
Stowell home here in Hingham, and she passed away, I think it
was on the 29th day of December last year.

"I am trying to get further news of their life and will forward
it to you. They were both women of lovely Christian charac-
ter, hospitable and generous. The last time I talked with Miss
Maria soon after her sister's death, she was trying to get ad-
ditional information about the Stowell coat-of-arms. I am
very much interested in that subject because I want a sketch in
colors to hang in the Stowell Hall of the University, mentioned
in the circular I am sending."

Her husband was Dean of the Department of Education of the
University of Southern California up to the time of his retirement.

"I am sending to the Treasurer my last year's dues, and
$5.00 for sustaining membership. I do not promise this for
every year.

With thanks for your kind letter,

Sincerely yours,
MARY BLAKESLEE STOWELL."

We have one member of our family, whose brother is here to-
day, across the water this summer studying in Paris. I refer to
Mr. Stowell Goding of Canton, Massachusetts, and I have this
letter from him to the members of the Stowell Family Association:

"To the members of the Stowell Family Association:

I regret very keenly that I am unable to be with you all for

—15-

this annual meeting. I have very pleasant memories of the
meeting last summer at Hingham.

I wish that every one of you would make the trip over here
to the wonderful city of Paris and the beautiful country of
France. Probably you have all heard something of the 'cold
receptions to Americans in Paris.' Nothing could be farther
from the truth. I once had occasion to ask a Frenchman the
location of a certain street. Immediately he hailed a bus- ac-
companied me to my destination, shook hands and went back
to his business. That is but one example from many. The
French are justly proud of their cordial reception to foreigners.

I would like to congratulate you all and particularly your
President on the remarkably fine work done by the Stowell
Family Association and the progress it has made since its in-
auguration.

Most cordially yours,

STOWELL C. GODING."

I have commented across the street, somewhat, on the guests
we have from California, and if I won't burden you too much — -
this letter will all be incorporated in the minutes of the meeting —
I do want to quote some of the letter from Mr. Stowell's niece in
Beverly Hills, California, in regard to her uncle. I do not see Mr.
Stowell in the audience. I think probably he and his niece and
her husband have gone out to look the town over while they are
here. She says:

"My Uncle is nearly 76 years old, coming out here in 1874,
and has done much in line of building in this City, the past
year erecting a very fine theatre building, leased by Belasco for
Musical Comedy exclusively. Seats 15 0 0. It is Mayan archi-
tecture, and the first of its kind in the world. It is quite elab-
orate, with Indian designs and characters carved into the mas-
sive stone as well as in the tile work in the lobby etc. He will
have pictures of it with him, which we think is very unique
and artistic and worthy of his work, as he still remains very
active in business for a man of his years.

My Uncle is State Genealogist of the Sons of Revolution here
and has been for several years. He also aided Wm. Henry
Harrison Stowell in getting up his book as did my own father,
now deceased. It is possible he could aid you at some future
time in establishing a western branch of the Stowell family
here in the west. While he is not an orator or speaker, think
he would give a short talk on Los Angeles or California if he
was called upon to do so" —

I may have scared him away when I said I was going to call on
him this afternoon,

"extemporaneously or otherwise, as he is very interesting and
has a wonderful knowledge — one of the Judges here claims
him to be one of the best read men in Los Angeles."

The next two paragraphs have to deal somewhat with the work
that he has done, 'and you will see the bigness of the man.

"If you will look at Wm. Henry Harrison Stowell's genealogy,
under my Uncle's name, you will find therein some description
of some of his lifework up to date that book was published,
among which is a condensed item of his work in financing the

—16—

project of getting water to the Imperial Valley desert when the
Government refused its aid, feeling then it was a useless un-
warranted idea, but my Uncle had faith that the desert land
could be reclaimed and irrigated which would bring forth won-
derful agricultural products, and has lived to see the fine re-
sults of that work. Ask him about it and he can tell you more
in ten minutes than I could in half a day. Possibly that would
be a good subject if you wished him to give a short talk at the
'Meeting'. 'Imperial Valley and its Development and Reclama-
tion from Desert Land', which I am sure would be very inter-
esting to all present.

His business used to be the development of water in the
mountains and bringing it to various towns and cities of Cali-
fornia, and he was considered the 'Water King' in this section,
owing to his familiarity and knowledge of that subject, which
is so essential to the development of this wonderful country.

I fully realize the extra work you have in getting up the
organization of our Association, which is added to your daily
work, and since I am a daily worker too, being Secretary,
Treasurer and Manager of the above Corporation, the Pacific
Tile & Marble Company, Inc., I know what it all means, as I
myself often wish our day was about 50 hours long, instead of
24, so I could accomplish therein all I would like to.

Thanking you for writing me, which enabled me to pass the
word to my sister and Uncle, so they can be present, and trust-
ing I will receive information in due time of next year's meet-
ing, as I shall hope to attend then, when my Uncle can remain
here and look after the business while I am gone, and thank-
ing you for the pamphlet on last year's meeting which I have
enjoyed reading so much, I remain, with all good wishes for a
very pleasant Meeting this year.

Sincerely,
MISS WILHELMINA E. STOWELL.

P. S. When my Uncle erected the Stowell Hotel in this City
about 15 years ago, he had the Stowell Coat of Arms woven
into the bedspreads along with the name Stowell Hotel, and
also has the Coat of Arms in Dutch blue color on porcelain
candlesticks and match containers in each room of the hotel —
about 275 rooms. He has more in his Coat of Arms than you
have on your pamphlet, as he has a bird and some words Je
Vie etc. Ask him about it. My sister has also crocheted this
Coat of Arms into an artistic piece of work which is used on
the backs of chairs (upholstered chairs) for each member of
our family. Possibly some of the other Stowell women present
at the meeting would be interested in that and can ask her
about it."

I understand Mrs. Stowell was detained in Boston on account of
not feeling well, so you ladies will not have the pleasure of asking
her about that needlework.

We have been called upon, as I mentioned previously, to be ad-
vised of the passing of several members of the Family, Dr. Thom-
as Blanchard Stowell of Los Angeles and Miss Maria F. Stowell
of Los Angeles. I wonder if we could bow our heads at this time
in a silent prayer, and then I will ask the Rev. Woodbury Sweet-
ser Stowell to offer a short prayer.

[The meeting paused in silence in memory of the departed
members.]

—17—

Prayer by the Rev. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell.

Our Father, as we recall the names of our departed Family
members, may we remember that truth which is so precious to us,
that they have not gone from us forever. Some day we shall
meet in the land that is beyond our human sight. Help us to
remember, dear Father, that Thou hast made us for Thyself, and
may our hearts not rest until they find a home in Thee. May
Thy richest blessing rest upon the immediate families of those
who have been bereaved, and Thy rich benediction remain with
them and with us through the coming years. Amen.

The PRESIDENT. I wonder if at this time we might have a
motion put before us that a note of sympathy be sent to Mrs.
Thomas Blanchard Stowell of Los Angeles.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I so move.

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that the Secre-
tary be instructed to convey the sympathy of the Association to
Mrs. Thomas Blanchard Stowell of Los Angeles.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT: It is so ordered.

We have five speakers here this afternoon, all of whom will give
just short talks. I am not trying to give the party away that I
am about to introduce to you, but I have tried for three years to
get him, and you know if you keep persistently after a thing you
finally round it up, and I am very happy this afternoon to be able
to present to you Dr. Harlow Shapley, head of Harvard Observa-
tory of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, who is a
Missouri boy, and his mother was a Stowell. Dr. Shapley?

Remarks by Dr. Harlow Shapley.

Mr. President: Last year I went to Europe for six months in
order to avoid this ordeal, and the year before I went to the West
to avoid it, but this time I was caught napping, and I fear you
will be before I get through. I believe I should set a model for
these other four in the matter of brevity.

I will speak, being a research scientist, of two researches into
the origin of the Stowells. The first I was the recipient of when
I was seven years old. My father cornered two twin boys, who,
open-mouthed and open-eyed, listened to the statement of the
origin of the Stowell family he had married into. He said, "You
see, back in the old country their names were O'Flaherty, and
there they prospered for many years until the potatoes failed."
He didn't have any twinkle in his eye, so I think this must be the
true origin of the Stowells, Mr. President. When the potatoes

—18—

failed some of them boarded a tramp steamer at Cork and started
for this country. I believe because of their customary and re-
puted thrift, or the absence of funds, they did not pay any fare,
but concealed themselves in the coal bunkers, and only just as
they were landing on this side were they discovered. This so
much pleased, my father said, the captain of the ship, that he did
not punish them, but gave them the name, "Stow-well". That,
he said, was the origin of the family.

With that early step in the search of genealogy I have taken it
up in later years, leaving a few gaps for you more active members
of the Association to fill in, that is, the connection between this
state and the other state, and between that family and other
families all the way back to the ark. I start further back than
that, being professionally a student of inorganic evolution and
the origin of stellar systems, and I think I should remind you
people, the Stowell Family, or O'Flahertys, or whatever you are,
that your origin can be traced by the astronomer further than
you ever suspected.

I begin at the other end. You can take it from me, and 1 think
it is fairly true, that some ten thousand million years ago the
Stowell family was not very well organized. In fact they were
at that time inhabitants of the sun. The astronomer can tell you
— believe it or not, as they say — that all of the material in the
universe is condensed from primordial gas and dust and gases,
and as we come down through the ages these disorganized sub-
stances have come together into stars. I study stellar evolution
and follow those steps with considerable surety because they are
subject to mathematical analysis. We study these gases — and
remember I am talking about the origin of the Stowells, we were
completely gaseous in nature these few thousands of millions of
years back. Back of the Stowells were the earlier citizens of this
globe. But still we tracers into things of that kind go still further
back to our ancestors whose clothes we do not know about. But
we all know, these profound students of evolution, that about
one thousand million years ago the ancestors of the Stowells
were of low organic form. I do not think there is any doubt of
that. But back of that low organic form on the crust of the
earth was the crust itself from which we sprang, from dust. You
see we all came from that.

The crust of the earth had its origin in the sun several thous-
and million years ago. A star tore off part of the gaseous hot
atmosphere of the sun, and those hot gases went in long orbits
around the sun, — the origin of the earth and the Stowell family.
On those planets, after they condensed into solid and liquid
matter, we had the beginning of organic life, and that went
through various stages, and higher and higher until we have the
primates and organized society, and finally the Stowell Family
Association, the crowning glory of this cosmic evolution. So you
see my study into this problem of genealogy is away back in

—19—

there, and I am at the present time at the Harvard Observatory
with thirty or forty associates studying the problems of the de-
velopment out of chaos of this association and of the various in-
termediate steps through the stars, through the earth, and on.

And finally I leave this with you. Remember that we have one
thing in common with the mighty stars which have existed so
long, and will continue to exist after the Stowells no longer are.
We are all made of the same stuff, and we are all part of the
same gravitational laws, we are all part of the same evolution-
ary drift. And I mean that seriously. One of the crowning prob-
lems and interests in an association of this kind is to learn that
we are a part of a growth that goes through the universe and
involves all the organic world and all the inorganic world, the
stars themselves. We are part of the general cosmic scheme.

I will continue my part of the research into the Stowell gene-
alogy, and I will leave to the more active members the more im-
mediate problems connected with Hingham and with New Eng-
land.

Thank you, Mr. President.

[Applause.]

The PRESIDENT. We had a very wonderful meeting at Wash-
ington last year. I will ask Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell, who was our
speaker a few years ago, to give us a few of the high lights at
that particular time. Dr. Stowell?

Remarks by Dr. Ellery Cory Stowell.

The principal high light was our former president who blew
into Washington with his breezy and charming manner and called
us together. We met there in the Roosevelt Hotel. There was
Mrs. Jason Waterman, Mr. and Mrs. Carl D. Ruth, Miss Elisabeth
Stowell, and several members of my own family and my brother's
family. His widow and his two children were there, and we had
a delightful little gathering around the dinner table. We talked
things over before and talked things over afterward. Represen-
tative Gibson, who is one of the finest men in Congress, tried to
be present, but he was so busy he couldn't get there to the meet-
fng. His mother was also a Stowell, if I am not mistaken, Mr.
President.

The PRESIDENT. Yes.

Dr. STOWELL. And there was a feeling that it was worth
while for us to organize the members in a little district association
to cooperate with the Stowell Association, and Mrs. Waterman
was asked to undertake that. She has been very much interested,
and I think we shall have an important group there to cooperate
with this Association here.

It was rather a difficult thing in Washington itself.

—20—

Washington is like no other place in the country. The people
do not stay put. They come and go, and it is a very hard thing
to keep any association there. I am one of the oldest residents,
and I have been there I think eight years. But Mrs. Waterman
has been there a good deal longer. She has been there some
thirty or forty years. So we have a good prospect there of hav-
ing a vigorous association.

The PRESIDENT. It was really a pleasure to go to Washing-
ton and sit down to the table at the Roosevelt Hotel. It was the
first time I have been able to sit quietly back and see somebody
else do the work. We had a charming time, — a great big, round
table, and twelve people gathered around it.

One of the members told me that he felt quite sure if I were to
call upon the next speaker we would have some interesting news
from her. I am going to call upon Mrs. J. W. Stowell of Feder-
alsburg, Maryland, to ask if she will say a few words to us at
this time. Mrs. Stowell is superintendent, if I am advised rightly,
of the country school work near Baltimore. I believe that is it.
If I am incorrect, I wish you would put us right on it. Mrs.
Stowell?

Remarks by Mrs. J. W. Stowell.

Mr. President: I am surprised. I did not know that I was go-
ing to be called on to make a speech here today. I am more or
less of an outsider and certainly have not prepared a speech.
You have been misinformed. I am not superintendent of schools
anywhere, certainly not outside of Baltimore, or just outside of
Baltimore. Perhaps it would not be interesting to you to know,
but as the subject has been brought up I will say I do happen to
be president of the School Board of Caroline County on the East-
ern Shore of Maryland.

I hardly know what would be of interest to you to say. Dr.
Stowell was telling of the interesting times they were planning
in Washington for the Stowell Association, and we I am sure
have been largely out of it. We are in Maryland, we are not in
Washington. I do not know of any other Stowell near us. We
are hardly large enough for an association. Now, if this is a
hint—

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. We hope you will join us.

Mrs. STOWELL. We have been very much interested in this
Association since we heard about it. I think we heard about it in
the beginning. I wish we had a little more material for you in
our immediate neighborhood, but we have just our one little
family. Mr. StoweU's father and mother have died within the
last few years, so there is no one there now except Mr. StowelJ
and his sisters.

The PRESIDENT. Just to show you the ramifications of a
thing of this kind that Mrs. Stowell brings up, it has been the
idea that where there was a state where there were only two or

—21—

three, that there be a combination of three or four states and the
members all join in some central place.

I had a word from Miss Angela Elisabeth Stowell of Washing-
ton, who was present last year at the meeting of December 6th,
when we had our little social time. She had a letter from Mr. J.
W. Stowell's sister, who happens to be living in Washington, and
Miss Elisabeth Stowell has always been a very enthusiastic boost-
er for the Association. It just shows the missionary work that is
going on quietly throughout the country along those lines. Miss
Elisabeth is trying to interest Miss Stowell in the Association. I
think in time we will have her enrolled as a member. You can
never tell, when you step out of here and get in touch with some-
body else, what the results might be. You might start what
would be an endless chain before the year was over.

Another one of our enthusiastic boosters has been Mrs. Har-
riet King Headrick of New York City. I have asked Mrs. Head-
rick to say a few words to us at this time.

Remarks of Mrs. Harriet King Headrick.

I certainly did not know that I was going to be called upon.
If I had, I should not have come. I have had a perfectly lovely
time and enjoyed every minute of it.

Every time I meet Mr. Conger, which is very often, I am sorry
to have him always talk about the enormous amount of work
which he has to do, and I can see that it is a great strain, and I
myself feel that such work as the clerical work should be paid for.
It should be put down as an item, and that is all there is to it,
pay for it. Put it down as the expense of the organization. We
are not very large or very rich, but we certainly ought to be able
to pay for that work. I think it wrong that he should have so
much work to do. I hope he will not finish it, but will just put
it on to the new president. Perhaps the new president will get
it done and paid for, as he ought to.

The PRESIDENT. In line with the letter that I received from
Miss Wilhelmina Stowell of Los Angeles I thought we would like
to have a word from Mr. Nathan Wilson Stowell, if he is in the
audience. I don't seem to see his face, and I think he must be out
around the grounds somewhere.

Mrs. J. W. STOWELL. Mr. President, I heard him say he
wanted to see some of the grounds, and he asked somebody to go
with him.

The PRESIDENT. Mr. Snow, would you step outside. I see
somebody there with a cap on now. I don't know whether it is
he or not.

Mrs. THOMAS JOHNSTON HOMER. Mr. President, don't you
think we might raise our annual subscription? One dollar is so
small, and it would seem as if everyone would be willing to give
at least $2. I don't know as that would do very much good, but
it would be better than $1, anyway.

—22—

The PRESIDENT. Mrs. Homer, I am very glad you brought
that up. Can we have a little discussion along that line? One
dollar does not seem to be very much, but you just double it and
we could have double the money coming in that we have had
from the dollar subscriptions and the problem of stenographic-
help would be absolutely solved.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Mr. President, it just occurs
to me at the moment you are speaking — the thought has not been
in my mind before — but I notice some of these associations that
I belong to are met with the problem of a deficit and they ask
for additional subscriptions besides the membership. I think it
is rather too bad to increase the membership to over a dollar be-
cause some might not come in. But if you should send around
notices putting the first amount S2, and then put a little star up to
that amount and say that this includes a dollar subscription, and
those who do not care to make the dollar subscription can simply
send in their annual membership fee, underneath, that might be
a way of meeting that and keeping the members in.

The PRESIDENT. I think that has been covered to a certain
extent. I have gone a little further than that, not trying to be
hoggish at all, but on the statements that have gone out I have
put down in the bottom a note asking if they could see their way
clear to contribute.

Dr. STOWELL. They will make out the check for the first
thing they see without looking down below, and it was suggested
by a very keen observer of the International Law Society, and it
worked.

Rev. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. I think that as we
are especially interested in getting new members, those who are
not very familiar with our meetings here at Hingham, that it
would not be well to make it a compulsory membership fee of
$2, so many in fact do not come, but to have the regular member-
ship fee one dollar, and some such arrangement as Dr. Stowell
has suggested for the additional dollar. We could have a two
dollar membership as well as a five dollar membership. Five
dollars is quite a jump from one dollar, and a good many might
pay two.

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL (of Walpole). Mr. President, I
would be very much opposed to having the membership fee over
$1. I think it is all right to have a life membership of S25. but I
believe you can get twice as many members with a $1 fee. and
that is what we want. Every married man has to pay $2. and
every unmarried man ought to pay S2. but I think SI is enough,
especially for we poor married men.

Mrs. THOMAS JOHNSTON HOMER. These people asking
these questions and your answering them involves a good deal of
work on your part. It seems to me if they ask questions that in-
volve a good deal of work, they ought to become members.

The PRESIDENT. Here is some correspondence where a lady

—23-

writes in that will show you. There is my reply to it. There
comes along her second letter. There is another letter going in-
to detail with regard to it, and along comes another letter. Here
goes back another letter to her in detail. I had answered her
questions in the first letter primarily, but she wanted still fur-
ther information. I go to work and send an announcement of
today's meeting to her, not expecting that she would come be-
cause she is away out in Illinois, and I get a letter back. We
have solicited and sent her application cards for membership
and she says, "We will be unable to attend the meeting of the
Stowell Family Association this year, but hope to be able to in
the near future." It was research work they wanted me to do
for them. If they had the family genealogy, they would have the
whole thing solved then and there. I have solicited their mem-
bership and I have not gotten it yet. I have done everything I
possibly could. There is the thing that involves time. If you
should take that thing to a stenographer and get it done, there
is three or four dollars worth of stenographic work.

Rev. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. How much do
you think the stenographic work would run into?

The PRESIDENT. I think it could be handled for a hundred
or a hundred and twenty-five dollars. That means to get all
caught up, because that accumulation comes about from the send-
ing out of 3750 letters the first year, which I sent out myself, and
I worked night and day. I just want to tell you this, folks, that
if you were to go into the market and get the services of a sten-
ographer for the work that I have done in the past three years it
would cost this Association well on to twelve or fifteen hundred
dollars. I expect I have sent out personally some fifteen hundred
personal letters that I have composed myself on the typewriter,
in addition to the 3750, and the drafting of all the forms, the let-
terheads, the membership cards, the luncheon tickets and the
Family crests, and everything that has been done of that charac-
ter. Cast that to one side. I am just simply stressing the steno-
graphic end of it, because it has been a tremendous amount of
work. And you take the work we had in our booklet that Mr.
J. W. Stowell of Federalsburg got out for us. If we had gone in-
to the market and had that work done, I can't say how much it
would have cost us, but it would have cost several hundred dol-
lars.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Mr. President, wouldn't it
be possible to send out a special appeal to those who live in your
neighborhood, where you can get at them, to help you in your
work? . I think if you found some people in Boston who had a
little spare time, they might be paid for it. They might be mem-
bers of our Family who would be interested in developing this
Association and take off from you some of the burden. I should
like to support what you say. I should be willing to make a
small contribution toward it. I hope we will not depart from

-24—

the good business principles that we have had and incur any ex-
pense that is not covered by money in the treasury. That I
should be very much opposed to. But I should think if we did
those two things, see what funds there were in the treasury for
stenographic assistance to help you, and send out an appeal to
the people in your neighborhood who would take over some of
these letters, and perhaps find two or three people who had some
time, members of the Family, receiving perhaps a small remunera-
tion, that would be interested and stay with it, and build up this
correspondence, and take the less important correspondence off
your shoulders, it would be of considerable help to you.

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. Mr. President, in reply to Dr.
Stowell, knowing the people of New England the way I do, and
knowing they have to scratch about all the time to get a living,
and if they have a little spare time they want to go to the movies,
I do not believe you would find anybody in the Stowell family
who would help you out to any extent, and it seems to me it
would be a good idea, and I would like to make the motion that
the secretary be authorized to employ help as he thought was
necessary, with the approval of the president and vice-president
Of this Association.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I second that motion.

The PRESIDENT. I am in an embarrassing position here. I
am presiding and the vice-president is supposed to be presiding.

The SECRETARY. I would like to say something on this ques-
tion myself. The proposition sounds very good the way Mr.
Stowell has put it. The thing I am thinking of is how actually it
can be executed, if we pass such a motion. For instance, when
it comes to expense, just as Dr. Stowell of Washington says, —
and it was mentioned back further in the meeting today, — if we
are going to send out a financial report, that is something that
is done for the Association as a whole. It is a report that will go
into the hands of every member. We may have money enough to
do that, but that is only one example of the sort of thing which
we would like to do for the Association. The moneys that have
been spent by the Association have practically been spent wholly
for the Association.

This proposition of getting a stenographer involves the use of
money, but it is the use of money for individuals. That is what
it really comes down to. For instance, this person Mr. Conger
spoke of that he had had correspondence with, he said there was
three or four dollars worth of correspondence there. We pay
our dollars, and the dollars are spent on one person. Up to now,
the dollars have been spent on ourselves either directly or indi-
rectly.

The whole point that I am getting at is this, that at the present
time we have been able to get along financially and serve the
membership in one way or another, and whether it has been well
or not with us that is what has been done, serving the member-

—25—

ship. Getting a stenographer brings back the individual idea,
and I do not just know where the money is going to come from.
Maybe the thing could be financed, but at the present time we
are' financing ourselves for ourselves, and effectively. If we take
on an additional burden for expense of that sort, I do not know
where the finances are coming from. Perhaps somebody else
has some ideas on the matter. That is, we can go ahead and
authorize a stenographer, and where are we going to get the
money to pay him? If we pay for the stenographer out of the
money which we now have in the treasury, because we now have
some money which would be available for that purpose, we
would have to cut down on such a thing, for example, as send-
ing out that financial notice. It might not be that very thing, but
it would be something along that line. We would have to cut
down on something that was going to the membership at large.

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. Mr. President, I think the
Secretary by being economical in his posting and sending out
special notices can probably save some money. I made that mo-
tion as Mr. Conger is going to be secretary next year, and he has
got to have some help to do this work, and I also added that the
President and Vice-President should approve of the engaging of
those services, and I realize that they would not approve of any-
thing that there was not any money to pay for. There will be
some money spent that there will not be any return for, but a
good deal of it that is spent will bring in new membership, and
we will get more money by doing this work.

The SECRETARY. That is the point I wanted to bring out.

The PRESIDENT. May I say this: The comment has been
made here this afternoon that there have been a hundred mem-
bers that have paid in. We have approximately, with all out-
standing bills paid, something like $100 probably. There are, I
would say, 80 to 90 members yet to be heard from to be renew-
ed, which will bring in additional revenue. As I have outlined to
you before, I purposely cut down every single thing that I pos-
sibly could in every way this year. We did not have the frills
and the luxuries and all the other things that go with a meeting
of this kind, the candy, and the smokes for the men, and the
punch and the floral decorations and the outside music and the
pealing of the bells. The pealing of the bells last year was
twenty odd dollars. Our music bill was $12 and expenses. Our
flowers were something. I did it purposely in order to get the
money into the treasury that the stenographic services could be
provided for. And it is just as Mr. Henry Miles Stowell says,
that by getting letters answered it is going to bring in returns in
the way of new members and spreading Stowellism through the
country. In order to get results you have got to spend money.
That is salesmanship, and if it is the wish of the Association that
we carry on and grow and expand, and do some of these things
that you people are vitally interested in — one group here is in-

—26—

terested in something, one in another phase of life in general —
this thing has got to be handled in some such way. I would like
to have the discussion further carried on. I am going to call on
Mr. Stowell from Pawtucket. What do you think about th
am going to get very personal right now, because 1 want a defi-
nite statement out of the rank and file here. Mr. Stowell?

Mr. HERBERT JACKMAN STOWELL (of Pawtucket). Mr.
President, I think that the members of the family that write in
for information and are not members of the Association ought to
have it made clear to them that it entails considerable expense
and time, and that they should pay a compensation for it. pro-
vided they are not members. Those services that you are render-
ing to members may possible be given to outsiders that are just
trying to secure the information and material of one kind and
another for their own special purposes, and with other objects
in view. It seems to me it is only right that they should pay
something for it, and if you do something of that nature that it
might be suggested to them that it does involve some expense,
that you are willing to render them the service, but you feel they
ought to make a contribution if they do not care to joint the As-
sociation.

The PRESIDENT. I put that up to this Mrs. Seth Stowell very
plainly in two or three letters, telling her that it took up some of
my time, that I was not a wealthy man, and the thing had to be
handled along that line. Mr. Stowell. what do you think about
it? How does the thing appeal to you from your angle down in
Maryland?

Mr. J. W. STOWELL (of Federalsburg. Maryland). I think
you should have some assistance.

The PRESIDENT. I think you have demonstrated that you are
willing to give that assistance. Mr. Stowell of Freeport. what do
vou think about it?

Mr. JOHN STOWELL (of Freeport, Maine). I think you should
have some assistance.

[Calls for the question.]

Mr. GEORGE LORING STOWELL (of Waltham). Mr. Presi-
dent, could I say a word? Mr. President and Cousins, as you
have bade us call you this afternoon, it seems to me in order to
bring this thing to a head, that we need money, and we cannot
get very far without money. Would it be agreeable to this body
if we offered a little collection here, and the Secretary notify the
members of what we have done here? Would that have any ef-
fect on them? We have got to have money. Money made the
mare go in the olden times. It makes the auto go today.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I don't think we ought to take
a collection because it will have a fatal effect in succeeding years.
I have offered to make a small contribution, but I think if we put
it in that wav it would not be a good thing, and I think if we are

to pass votes, they should be for money that is in the treasury.
I do not understand there is any vote to spend money that is not
in the treasury. If the President and Vice-President are given the
control to say how the money in the treasury should be expended,
I see no reason why it should not be expended to help you.

The PRESIDENT. Mrs. Dumont, what do you think about it?

Mrs. DUMONT. I think the other members of the Stowell fam-
ily ought to devise some ways and means of raising money.

Rev. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. Don't you think
you ought to have a definite appropriation for that by vote of the
Stowell Association, say an amount not exceeding $100, some-
thing like that, so that we will know where we are at?

The PRESIDENT. If you folks think that I have not gone about
the matter in the right way, I want your suggestions. This is
your association and not mine.

Mrs. ALICE STOWELL ELDER. Mr. President, I have seen
some of your work and know something about what you have
been doing, and I feel that there are enough members of the As-
sociation around Boston to help you out in some of this work
without going to a great deal of expense. There may be some
expense connected with it, but the letter you have just held up is
an example. That was not typewritten, it was not gotten up in
the nice form that your reply was, and I do not think that every
letter calls for a typewritten reply. I think that some of that cor-
respondence, and perhaps some of the other work that you have
got could be given out to some of us members, and we could help
you out in some way. I know I am willing to, and I think we can"
find somebody else who is willing to without incurring an expense
of a hundred dollars or two hundred dollars. I think a letter like
that one, or those two or three you have showed us, could be
answered in longhand. I guess you did read one typewritten let-
ter today. I can't run a typewriter, but I will attempt to answer
a few letters in longhand. Of course I know you can do the
work best.

The PRESIDENT. The reason I keep carbon copies of them is
because it is necessary for future data. There are certain letters
that require that, and the major portion of the correspondence is
of that nature which does require it. That is the reason for sep-
arating the correspondence between the secretaryship and the
recording secretaryship. Mrs. MacDougall, who is the new
recording secretary, is a stenographer. She lives in the Town of
Warren, Rhode Island, and I may have to take an aeroplane
down there to get in touch with her. Mr. Stowell's idea is an
excellent one, but the only trouble is distance, and you spend a
great deal of time getting from one to the other, whereas if I
could have a stenographer come to my house I could get this mass
of stuff out of the way.

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. A lot of good motions are
sometimes talked to death. I would like to call for the question.

—28—

The PRESIDENT. Will you put the motion again so we will
have it formally?

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. That the Secretary be author-
ized to hire such help as may be necessary to conduct his office,
with the approval of the President and the Vice-President.

The PRESIDENT. You have heard the motion. Is there any
question?

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Do I hear a second? It was
seconded. I should like to make an amendment that the amount
be limited to $100.

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. I will accept that.

The PRESIDENT. You have heard the motion.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

Mrs. HENRY MILES STOWELL. Mr. President, wouldn't it
save a little if only one copy was sent to an address?

The PRESIDENT. That question has been raised before, and
I will say this: Yes and no. My knowledge of the addresses
could eliminate that. If I got a stenographer in and said, "Send
a certain number of copies to these people", they would not know
whether Mrs. Raymond Stowell and Mr. Henry Miles Stowell were
mother and son unless I went through and picked them out.

Mrs. HENRY MILES STOWELL. I mean one copy to one ad-
dress.

The PRESIDENT. Yes, it should be done. In your case I did
not have time to pick them out. There are two or three isolated
cases where there are four or five members in the same family
where duplicate copies have been sent. As a whole, out of the
250 odd copies that were sent out I do not believe there were five
families that were duplicated.

Mrs. LOTTIE STEBBINS MacDOUGALL. I think from the
very reason that Mr. Conger has covered that end of it as he has,
he has gained friends. I know that every Stowell I see I try to
get them in the family. The president probably has spent quite
a little on postage, but it is not lost. It is all for a good purpose.

Mr. HENRY MILES STOWELL. I would like to make one
more motion. Perhaps I will make three or four more before the
day is over.

I understand this church is given to us without expense, and
has been the past three years. And I furthermore understand
that nobody was ever thanked for it. I do not know who the
proper ones are to thank, but I move you that the Secretary be
instructed to send a vote of thanks to the proper ones for the use
of this church for the past three years.

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that a vote of
thanks be sent to the proper authorities,— the Chairman of the

—29—

Parish Committee is Mr. Henry F. Ripley here in Hingham, — for
the use of the meeting house and the parish house across the
street.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT. It is so ordered.

Are there any other motions to be brought before the meeting?

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. I should like to move that a
committee on vital statistics be appointed. I do not know exact-
ly what vital statistics are, but I think it would be a mighty good
thing to have this committee on vital statistics appointed.

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It has been moved and seconded that a
Committee on vital statistics be appointed —

Dr. STOWELL. Appointed by the President, I might say.

The PRESIDENT, —appointed by the President. May I say
this in regard to that, that I have studied that subject a little my-
self, and it pertains to the histories of the families of certain com-
munities. You get your vital statistics of Peru, Massachusetts,
where three-quarters of the Stowells came from. They take that
section and go through and get certain families and get all the
data they can pertaining to them, and they label them, "Vital
Statistics". You have heard the question.

[The motion is put and carried unanimously.]

The PRESIDENT. Is there any other unfinished business to
come before the meeting? I believe there were several things to
be brought up.

Mr. JEAN H. STOWELL (of Somerville, Mass.) Mr. Presi-
dent, if there is nothing on hand in regard to subscriptions and
contributions at our luncheon, you announced that we guaran-
teed 85 people and we had to make up the difference between
what was actually there and the 85.

The PRESIDENT. Yes.

Mr. STOWELL. Well, we cannot ask for donations or sub-
scriptions, but I am going to suggest that some of us will be
willing to contribute a little something towards making up that
deficit, and perhaps there may be other incidental expenses to be
taken care of in connection with today's meeting. As I under-
stand it, Mr. Homer has already received some subscriptions.

The SECRETARY. That is correct. I have received some
money on that very proposition already.

Mr. STOWELL. It is not in the form of a motion. I suppose
it will go into the minutes of the meeting, but I would simply
like to bring it to the attention of the members that contributions
will be received.

—30—

The PRESIDENT. This is the first year we have had a de-
ficit. We have always run over before. The bill has been paid,
$85, and $60 were turned in. There were 60 people present here
today, so we have that amount of $25 to make up. 1 think we
have made a very good showing even for today. This is appar-
ently not the logical time to hold our meeting. If we had had it
in July, we would have had a rainy day, and not had as many
here, but I have had quite a number of reports by mail that peo-
ple were doing this, that and the other thing, and could not pos-
sibly be here, — the opening up of the fall season, schools begin-
ning, people taking up their year's work, and the like, and they
have not seen fit to come. Does anybody want to put that sug-
gestion of Mr. Jean H. Stowell's in the way of a motion?

Mr. JEAN H. STOWELL. I did not want to bring the matter
up and put it in the form of a motion. Just let it be known that
contributions will be received, and I feel that perhaps some will
be willing to contribute.

The PRESIDENT. Here are Mr. Homer and Mr. Winfred Lin-
coln Stowell, the treasurer, sitting back there, and if any of you
have got any money or loose change laying around you will
know what to do with it.

Mrs. H. A. DUMONT. I would like to make a motion that
Mrs. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell be given a vote of thanks for
her delightful songs today.

[The motion is seconded.]

The PRESIDENT. It is moved and seconded that a vote of
thanks be given Mrs. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell for her musical
program given here today.

[The motion is duly put and carried.]

The PRESIDENT. It is so ordered.

Is there anything else to come before the meeting? Last year
it was 5.30, but I think we have gotten further ahead than we
have ever gotten before.

Before turning it over to Mr. Homer for closing, I want to
apologize for having seemingly usurped his position as com-
manding officer since the election took place.

We have an automobile committee here of which Mr. Jean H.
Stowell is chairman. There are quite a number of automobiles
here, and those who have not seen the interesting spots of Hing-
ham can take them in. I want to ask you what you think of
hiring a bus another year and bringing you from Boston down
here, if we should meet here next year. From 8.35 to 10.05 there
is no train, which makes it hard to get down here. You lose so
much time that you have no opportunity to visit Hingham and
the home over here, and Fort Hill, which we wanted you to see,
and the place where Samuel Stowell landed, and any number of
historical spots here that are really of extreme interest. I do

—31—

not say that because, as one party said today when they saw me,
they expected to see an old, gray-haired man. I may reach that
point, but I haven't yet. I do hope we can work out a scheme to
get you here earlier and quicker. I did get the time tables and
sent them all out, and took it up with the New Haven Road, and
they wanted to know how many we expected here today. But
Mr. Wilson, who wrote me, passed away very suddenly. If we
could pick up a crowd in a bus, and bring them down here, it
might be more satisfactory. What do you think along that line?
Would you rather come by train, or would you rather come by
bus another year?

Dr. SHAPLEY. Mr. President, I suggest you ask how many
people came here by train.

The PRESIDENT. How many people came here by train to-
day? [A number of members raise their hands.] Quite a num-
ber. How many would like to come by bus from Boston? [A
number of members raise their hands.]

Mr. GEORGE LORING STOWELL. We could have a more
appropriate time for the meeting if we came by bus.

The PRESIDENT. Yes. You would not have to lose two
hours from one train time of leaving to another, and then you
could all pile into the bus here and be landed back in Boston at
some logical point where you could take the trolleys for your
homes.

Mr. GEORGE LORING STOWELL. Do you plan to meet here
another year?

The PRESIDENT. That is up to the executive committee to
decide, and you will be promptly notified in regard to that. If
that is all, I am going to turn the closing of the meeting over to
Mr. Homer.

Mr. HOMER. As Secretary last year I would like to say that
the Secretary has cast the vote ordered in connection with elect-
ing the slate presented by Mrs. Ruggles, and the people nomi-
nated are now the new officers for the ensuing year.

There is one point that we brought up this morning in the Ex-
ecutive Committee meeting which has to my mind not been fully
complied with. At that time Mr. Stowell of Federalsburg was
mentioned, and he has been introduced to the meeting. I still
feel that I would like to hear someone make a motion for a rising
vote of thanks to Mr. Stowell of Federalsburg for getting out
that pamphlet for us.

[Upon motion duly made and seconded a rising vote of
thanks is extended to Mr. Stowell of Federalsburg, Mary-
land.]

Mr. HOMER. Unless there is further business, which I believe
there is not, we will close the meeting.

Dr. ELLERY CORY STOWELL. Mr. President, before you
close the meeting I should like to say how much we appreciate

-^32—

what the retiring president has done for this Association. I think
it is phenomenal to see a man take a disorganized family as we
were and bring us together, and in these three years we have all
seen the tremendous energy, originality and devotion with which
he has worked, and I do not think we need to pass any vote, for
we all feel it. Before we close this meeting I should like to voice
what I know everybody feels about our retiring president.

[Applause.]

The PRESIDENT. I assure you that I appreciate those words
of Dr. Stowell's very, very much. I appreciate the help that has
been given to me by the Association as a whole, and by those
members who have come to me voluntarily and offered their as-
sistance. I do feel as the years go on we get better acquainted
and we get more done, and I do bespeak for the incoming officers
your unstinted support in their work for the coming year.

Rev. WOODBURY SWEETSER STOWELL. May we have
some of the minutes of this meeting read? There have been a
good many motions made.

The PRESIDENT. Mr. Stowell, the reporter will have a ver-
batim copy of what has taken place here this afternoon, and that
can be gone over, and if we see any changes are to be made, they
can be edited if we wish to do that. I do not think there will be
much occasion for that. The reporter asked me if we wanted
them edited and I said no. I think he has gotten a fairly accurate
account of what has taken place here this afternoon, and the mo-
tions can be taken out and put on separate sheets, so that you
will know exactly what has taken place before they are printed,
if that is what you have in mind, and I take it that it is.

Mr. HOMER. Any further business? Then we will adjourn
the meeting by singing the first verse of the "Star Spangled Ban-
ner", followed by a benediction by the Rev. Woodbury Sweetser
Stowell.

The PRESIDENT. I do want to thank the people for coming
out today and for all you have done in making the day a success.
I do not believe if we had ordered a day made to order that we
could have gotten any finer weather than we have had today.
We are only sorry that more of the Family are not here than are
here. I think it has been their misfortune not to be present.

[Singing of the "Star Spangled Banner".]

Benediction by the Rev. Woodbury Sweetser Stowell.

And now may the love of God, the grace of the Lord Christ
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and abide with us
now and forevermore. Amen.

-33-

1066—1927

By CHARLES HENRY STOWELL, M. D.

"Thou shalt not rob me, thievish Time.
Of all my blessings or my joys;
I have some jewels in my heart

Which thou art powerless to destroy."

Hearty greetings to you, Mr. President, and the same to each
of your boys and girls, gathered here on this historic occasion.

We are all sure of a good time, for a collection of Stowells
means a collection of light hearts, good nature and a realizing
sense of duty to those present and those to come.

Macaulay must have had some Stowell blood in his veins, for
he said: —

"A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements
of remote ancestors, will never achieve anything worthy
to be remembered with pride by remote descendants."

Let us begin. Who was the first Stowell? Where did he live?
What was his given name?

You know an Irishman and a Jew were in a heated conversa-
tion over the ancestor question. The Jew said, "My ancestors
lived long before yours. They came over in Noah's ark." "That's
nothing," said Pat, "my ancestors came over in a boat of their
own."

Pat certainly had some Stowell blood in him! He could paddle
his own canoe, every time and everywhere. Quite likely he did
have some Stowell blood, for many of the early Stowells left
England for Ireland, and no better proof of it is needed than the
fact that one of the most beautiful castles in all Ireland is Kilbrit-
tain Castle, Cork County, built about 1035 and owned and occu-
pied by a Stowell soon after 1685.

The origin of our English family dates from the arrival, on
English shores, of William the Conqueror, 1066. Early writers
had much to say about this Stowell family. One says, writing of
Cothelstone, now Quantock, "for a long time it hath bin, and still
is, the chief seat of the right noble and ancient family of Stowells.
They had the honor of knighthood and some of them held honor-
able offices in Parliament."

Some might ask, "Of what use is all this study of far-gone
times? Who cares for such old things?" The Good Book says,

—34—

"And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine
years." Wonder if he made all the boys "keep quiet, stop mak-
ing so much noise I tell you!" We youngsters were very familiar
with such commands from our neighbors and aged grandparents.
So we did not always love old people any too well!

In later years, however, when we learned that Methuselah was
the grandparent from whom came the Saviour of the World, then
things took on a far different outlook. And when, as a grand
climax, I was present at the sixty-second wedding anniversary
of my father and mother, and saw their snowy-white hair, and
wondered at their long continued gentle manners and their soft,
sweet voices, I said they were positively beautiful. Thus it might
have been with the super-extra-aged Methuselah.

With a great bound over the centuries, we come to Samuel
Stowell, our own Samuel. He was from England, of course. But
why did he ever leave home? Shall we give it up, and "renounce"
the whole business?

You know the young lady would not consent to the marriage
until the young man had joined the church. This he promptly
prepared to so. So he had two sets of questions to answer,
Church, and Marriage. How could he keep them carefully sepa-
rated?

The wedding evening arrived. The church was crowded. The
bride was charming. The groom was "frightened to death!" At
last, the great question was propounded. "Will you take this
woman to be your lawful and wedded wife," — and so on. The
groom was puzzled. He frowned. He hesitated. Then in a clear
and strong voice he replied, "I renounce them all!"

But wait. We renounce nothing! Let us proceed. In the
history of the Stowell family, under the name of "A Quantock
Family," Col. George D. Stowell, of London, says: "A Samuel
Stowell was baptized Jan. 5, 1581 in Bath Abbey and was buried
Dec. 7, 1628 in Chudleigh Parish." Now, both Bath Abbey and
Chudleigh Parish were in Devon County, hence it is reasonably
certain these two Stowells, namely "the baptized Stowell" and
the "buried Stowell," were one and the same. This authority
also tells us that "David Stowell, son of Walter, of 1403, was, in
all probability the ancestor of the Devon family." If so, David
must have been the ancestor of said Stowell, for both lived in
Devon County.

Now the third generation from said David brings us to John,
born 1523, who had "at least two sons, Jasper and Edmund." It
is this "at least" that most interest us. It certainly implies more
sons than these two. Yes, I say, more than these two.

—35—

One more at any rate, and his name was Samuel! You natu-
rally say "You imply too much." Not any more than is implied
by every writer and in general business everywhere, every day.
To illustrate. I find a man living well, paying his bills promptly,
has a fine car, and all that. Am I wrong in my reasoning that he
has some source of income I know nothing about?

To condense: David Stowell, b. 1441; Thomas, b. 1466; Ed-
mund, b. 1492; John, b. 1523; Samuel, b. 1581; and our Samuel,
b. about 1620, d. 1683.

You ask, why was not Samuel mentioned with his two broth-
ers? A dozen reasons, if you please. I am inclined to believe he
incited the displeasure of his parents and so they "cut him off,"
and he decided to try the new country of which he had heard so
much. Or, he may have taken the journey solely for more re-
ligious freedom.

At any rate, Mr. President, he came, and we are loud in our
acclaim of his bravery and of the stamp he placed on American
stock.

A few words now of a personal character. Over 40 years ago,
in the city of Washington, D. C, I walked into a bank and gave
my usual greetings to its president. He said, "We talked about
you up at our house last evening, and at the mention of your name
the mother of my wife who is on a visit to us from New England
said, "Why, he may be a relative of mine. You know all of my
folks were Stowells." Thus I obtained my first news of Samuel
Stowell. And what news it proved to be! Over 40 years ago,
yet something new all the time!

Mrs. Stowell and I began our work and soon had a chart con-
taining hundreds of names and from all parts of the country.
This chart was the first published work on the genealogy of the
Stowell family. In 1912, I published a book showing more of our
work, the first book ever printed on "The Stowell Family." So
I may truly claim not to be an amateur on the Stowell genealogy!

Amateur? Listen! I hear a gentle knocking on the door. I
call, "Come in." And the answer comes through the closed door;
"There is a man here, a Mr. Four-Score Years, and he says that
in a short time he will "come in" and sup with you." So I must
hasten on.

I cannot describe to you the keen delight and the great profit of
our study. Take the town of Newton, as an illustration. Here
are the stone foundations of the Stowell home, and nearby are
the stone outlines of the barns and sheds. Then, just on the edge
of the woods is a triangular plot, the family burial place. This is
the Cheney place.

—36—

It seems our Samuel had a grandson, Israel, b. 1703, who mar-
ried Sarah Cheney in 1729. This land was called the "Cheney
Farm," a very fertile and valuable property. On the death of
Sarah, "he inherited a portion of his wife's father's lands." I
have often visited this spot, mentioned above, and let my imagi-
nation play to its fullest extent.

On a visit to Keene, N. H., I found a long-lost cousin of my
father, a physician of wide repute and a gentleman of the old
school. A year after Mrs. Stowell and myself were visiting the
school at Exeter, N. H. As we were seated on the piazza of the
hotel, I mentioned our visit to Keene, calling the doctor by name.
A woman, seated a few feet away, jumped up in the most excited
manner and asked if it was true I knew this doctor. Then she
said, "He was the doctor who was with me at the birth of each
of my seven children. I am so glad to get a word about him, for
he was, in my opinion, the greatest doctor that ever lived."

While on one of our many visits to Hingham, we saw the janitor
of our sacred church performing his usual duties. I asked him if
he knew any one by the name of Stowell, then living in Hingham.
"Why, yes," he replied, "there was a Stowell girl, Helen, who
married a Harding. Come to the door and I will point out her
house." Suddenly he exclaimed, "There she goes now, on her
visit to the cemetery." We introduced ourselves, returned to her
home with her, and thus began a number of charming visits. The
last time we saw her was when we passed her house on our way
to our home. She stood in the doorway, waiving her hands, and
throwing us the good-bye tokens of friendship and love.

Little did we realize that after the passing of the years, we
would count among our dearest friends, our own Dr. E. Channing
Stowell, for this Helen Stowell Harding proved to be the sister of
Edmund Henry Stowell, who was the father of our own Dr. E.
Channing Stowell.

Once while riding through the country, in the days of the horse,
one front wheel of the carriage caught in an unseen excavation,
and we came to a sudden stop. But the horse kept straight ahead
with fright and a broken harness. What were we to do? Then
we saw a man running toward us, from a fine looking house, and
he exclaimed, "Are you hurt?" We said we were not, but our
harness was pretty sick. He said he could soon fix that all right.
Straps, cords, hammer and nails, all were soon forthcoming and
we were ready to start for home.

If you ever come to Lowell, I said, hunt me up and here is my
card. "What's this," he asked, "my wife is a Stowell. She has

--37—

her family all written out even to the days of Lord Stowell." So
you see, Mr. President, "the woods are full of us!"

The instances related above are only samples of a large num-
ber that could be given, but enough is enough!

In conclusion, Mr. President, allow me to thank you for the
pleasure you have given me, and for the opportunity of saying
to you all —

Obtain Members to our Association even if
you have to call on the State Militia for help!

A closing good-bye to you, Mr. President, and a warm hand-
shake in token of your earnest, enthusiastic, and unselfish labors
in behalf of —

The Stowell Family.

"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday
when it is past, and as a watch in the night."

—38—

Burial Place of Samuel1 Stowell.

In conversing with Mrs. Harding she said that in all probability
Samuel1 Stowell was buried in the first burial ground which is
now part of the grounds of Derby Academy. When it became
necessary to enlarge the grounds of the Academy, all possible
care was taken to keep the identity of the graves, in so far as any
headstones might indicate. These headstones are now seen
around the base of the monument, as illustrated at the end of the
driveway. But no marker is there for Samuel1. All unidentified
remains were buried at the base of this monument. Hence, there
is a strong probability that this monument marks the burial place
of Samuel1. It must be kept in mind, however, that possibly said
remains are still in the first burial place.

—39—

Closer View of Monument at End of Driveway.

—40—

The Gill Vault in Hingham Cemetery.

Mrs. Harding told me she knew that a number of the Stowells
were buried in the vault of a relative. She conducted us to the
vault and I made a photograph of the front. The names on the
marble shaft, over the door, were Caleb Gill and Caty Gill. The
Gill family was one of the early settlers of Hingham. Thomas
Gill was born in England about 1616, and died in Hingham, 1704-
5. Samuel2 Stowell, b. 1655, married Rachel Gill, daughter of
Thomas. The Gill name is also mentioned under Samuel*. Thus
it was only natural that the Gill vault should have been used also
by the Stowells.

41-

MR. STOWELL RETURNS FROM EUROPE.

I left for Europe the latter part of June and spent two months in
England and on the Continent. I found that, fundamentally, busi-
ness men in whichever country I visited, thought as we do. Their
problems are quite similar and their reaction quite the same. Of
course, they are surrounded by different conditions — different con-
ditions of money values and personal business habits. For exam-
ple, in London it is always the custom to make appointments in
advance of making business calls. Americans can break through
that custom but native Englishmen respect it and act on it. I
made two personal calls on large companies in London and had
the opportunity of talking to the office managers. Their position
was quite relative to office management in America, and they
were quite as keen, I thought, to discuss the problems of office
management as we are here.

In Manchester, England, I had the privilege of visiting the Met-
ropolitan-Vickers Corporation which has a large office building
devoted entirely to office work. Their letter writing was central-
ized and, I thought, most efficiently so; although they had not
come to a basis of compensation other than straight salary. That
is, of course, not a different attitude that we find in America, al-
though many companies have other systems here for compensat-
ing in proportion to accomplishment.

On the Continent there are customs which would seem peculiar
to us but which are thoroughly imbedded in the lives of the people
there and which apparently cannot be shaken. For example, in
Switzerland, the offices are opened early; in some cases, I think,
at 7:30 or 8:00. At 12:00 noon the offices are closed and locked
and they can neither be reached by personal call nor by telephone.
At 2:00 o'clock they are re-opened and many offices stay open
until 7:00 and others until 6:00. I talked with one of the sub-
stantial business men of Zurich about it, and he said that many
of the people there had attempted to change this habit but that
they had not been successful in doing it; that for many years the
habit had become a regular one and people were reluctant to
change.

On the average, American offices are much more modern than
those in Europe, I refer particularly to the office layout, condi-
tions of light and air, furniture and fixtures and office machinery,
but, I must in the same breath, tell you that I had some very
pleasant surprises. In some of the offices that I visited were
American office appliances in profusion, each one purchased to
do a job economically and efficiently on the same basis that we
purchase in this country, and the fine fact to me was the fact that
these were American office appliances despite the fact that in
many European countries there has been an attempt made to de-
velop a complete line of office machinery similar to what we have
here.

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There is no question but that all of Europe and the United
Kingdom looks to America for the development, manufacture and
servicing of office equipment. I found that service to an office
after the sale of equipment did not have the same meaning that
it does in America. There were many exceptions and I think that
my own organization can be classed as an exception, but the fact
remains that in many instances in Europe today machinery is sold
and the purchaser has full responsibility for it thereafter with no
time and attention from the manufacturer or seller of the goods.

I cannot close this comment to you without saying that I was
tremendously impressed with the more favorable business condi-
tions in Europe than in the last few years. Things are not rush-
ing at the speed that they do in America, but, nevertheless, busi-
ness is good and getting better, and I look to see increasingly
large export by American manufacturers regardless of the kind
of product made, in these next few years.

L. C. STOWELL.

Mr. Leon Carl Stowell, President, Dictaphone Sales Corporation,
Graybar Building, New York City, was the main speaker at our July,
19 26 meeting, and is deeply interested in the work of our Associa-
tion.— Editor.

REGISTRATION LIST OF THOSE ATTENDING THE THIRD
ANNUAL MEETING OF THE STOWELL FAMILY ASSOCIATION

George Loring Stowell, 7 2 Orange St., Waltham, Mass.

Thomas J. Homer, Jr., 4 Linwood Square, Boston, Mass.

Luther Stowell Conger, # 20A Garden St., Beacon Hill, Boston,

Mass.
Ellery C. Stowell, 3734 Oliver St., Chevy Chase, Washington, D. C.
Charles C. MacDougall, Warren, R. I.

Lottie H. Stebbins MacDougall (Mrs. Charles C), Warren, R. I.
Mrs. Harriet King Headrick, 157 West 57th St., New York City.
Mrs. Emily Frances (Lewis) Morse, 110 Village St., Medway, Mass.
Miss Sarah Evelyn Morse, 110 Village St., Medway, Mass.
Eugene Charles Leslie Morse, 4 Humboldt Ave., Worcester, Mass.
Mrs. Mabel Black Morse, 4 Humboldt Ave., Worcester, Mass.
Mrs. Raymond M. Stowell, 224 Common St., Walpole, Mass.
Jean Stowell, Walpole, Mass.
Pamela Stowell, Walpole, Mass.

Raymond Miles Stowell, 224 Common St., Walpole, Mass.
Henry Miles Stowell, 191 Common St., Walpole, Mass.
Annie Rosella Pierce Stowell, 191 Common St., Walpole, Mass.
Rev. and Mrs. Woodbury S. Stowell, 15 Orchard Ave., Brockton,

Mass.

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Ella Stowell Homer (Mrs. Thomas J. Homer), 4 Linwood Square,
Roxbury, Mass.

Miss Gertrude L. Lovett, 16 Whitney St., Amherst, Mass.
Mrs. Marian Webster Sandbrook, 48 Brook St., Brookline, Mass.
John Warren Stowell, Federalsburg, Maryland.
Mrs. J. W. Stowell, Federalsburg, Maryland.
Mr. John Stowell, Freeport, Me.
Mrs. John Stowell, Freeport, Me.
Miss Mildred P. Stowell, Freeport, Me.
Kenneth L. Goding, Canton, Mass.

Mrs. Ella Louise Stowell, 68 High St., Stoneham, Mass.
John Milton Stowell, 68 High St., Stoneham, Mass.
Emma M. Sibley, 15 Blithedale St., Newtonville, Mass.
Elvin D. Stowell, Orange, Mass.
Mrs. Sarah E. Taylor, Claremont, N. H.
Mrs. Lucie E. Mitchell, Lowell, Mass.
John Louis Mitchell, Lowell, Mass.

Wm. H. Matheson (Guest), 84 Gardner St., Allston, Mass.
Bertha May Stowell Mendell, 16 Lovell St., West Somerville, Mass.
'Mrs. Ella F. Stowell Ruggles, Arlington, Mass.
Florence Lewis Dumont, 136 Lexington Ave., Cambridge, Mass.
Jane Lewis Dumont, 13 6 Lexington Ave., Cambridge, Mass.
Lulu Seaver Snow, 68 High St.,Whitinsville, Mass.
Chas. S. Snow, 68 High St., Whitinsville, Mass.
Harlow Shapley, Harvard Observatory, Cambridge, Mass.
Charles L. Stowell, 25 Elston St., Somerville, Mass.
Helen L. Stowell, Concord Rd., Billerica, Mass.
Miss C. Edith Fox (Guest).

Alice Stowell Elder, Concord Rd., Billerica, Mass.
Alex. Stowell Elder, Concord Rd., Billerica, Mass.
Alice Eugenia Elder, Concord Rd., Billerica, Mass.
Helen Eloise Elder, Concord Rd., Billerica, Mass.
Helen Agatha Stowell, 68 High St., Stoneham, Mass.
W. L. Stowell, Jr., So. Weymouth, Mass.
Mrs. W. L. Stowell, Jr., So. Weymouth, Mass.
Meredith D. Stowell, So. Weymouth, Mass.
Jean H. Stowell, West Somerville, Mass.

Mrs. Jean H. Stowell, 14 Warner St., West Somerville, Mass.
Donald Perry, 14 Warner St., West Somerville, Mass.
Lester Perry, 14 Warner St., West Somerville, Mass.
Nathan Wilson Stowell, 604 American Bank Bldg., Los Angeles, Cal.
Alice Anna Stowell Fitch, 603 N. Elm Drive, Beverly Hills, Cal.
Orland Parker Fitch, 603 N. Elm Drive, Beverly Hills, Cal.
Henry Jackman Stowell, Pawtucket, R. I.
Mrs. Henry Jackman Stowell, Pawtucket, R. I.

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